Trustbuilding Camp Bandung
Creating a New Story: Heal the Past and Hope for the Future
Friday, 29 July – Sunday, 31 July 2022
The Initiatives of Change (IofC) teams in Indonesia returned to Bandung this year to host another Trustbuilding Camp after hosting the first camp in 2015. The camp brought together young leaders to learn about diversity, building trust, and breaking prejudice, through dialogues, and games such as Friends for Life card game and Pest Attack board game, to create trust and friendship.
Nur Hayati Syafii, the president of the Initiatives of Change (IofC) Indonesia, warmly welcomed all facilitators and participants. In her opening speech, she shared the importance of personal change for self-development and growth. “Listening to our inner selves is one the keys to creating change. I have been involved with IofC Indonesia since 2009, which is how I learned about quiet time and learned to practice this daily. We will practice quiet time in this camp together and enjoy the process we make.” In his welcoming speech, Miftahul Huda, the Program Manager of the Trustbuilding project in Indonesia, said that this camp is a space for the participants to go on an inner and outer journey. “During this three-day camp, we will take time for ourselves, take a pause in life, and reflect on what we can do to contribute to a better world”, he said, and adding to that “If you want to change the world, start with changing yourself.” In the opening session, we sang one of the IofC songs ‘It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.’ Instead of complaining about problems happening around the world, we can do something and take actions to create change.
The trustbuilding work is guided by a conceptual framework, which forms the basis for the trustbuilding work of Initiatives of Change International’s Trustbuilding Program start with yourself, engage everyone in honest conversation, acknowledge history, and build a diverse team. Nenden led a session about ‘start with yourself’ and shared her personal experiences of healing her relationship with her family by starting within herself. “I used to have wounds with my dad that I didn’t get any affection from him since I was three years old. The effect of divorce between my parents affected my relationship with myself, parents, and people around me. Through my journey in IofC, I learnt that change starts with myself and I want to forgive myself and my parents.” In this session, the participants were asked to draw a diagram of life to reflect on their life experiences. We were divided into family groups and each one of us was given a space to share life diagram and listen to others’ stories.
On the second day, we started our day with quiet times. We were introduced to Initiatives of Change (IofC) in the sense of quiet times. This morning’s reflection was on starting with self, connecting with others, and to connect with society and find answers to the world’s needs. We learnt together to connect more with ourselves, to put things right, and take actions for a better life. In this session, we reflected on a question, ‘During these weeks, what connections have been made, corrections have been needed and directions to take?’ Having been given the chance to lead this session, I was so grateful to listen to positive feedback from participants after the session. Some participants came and said, “Thank you for reminding us about the importance of practicing daily quiet times. I remembered a subject related to correction in my life.”
We also invited friends from different religious backgrounds sharing their experiences as minority groups in Indonesia. Having against the religious minorities has been one of the big issues in Indonesia. Through the sharing sessions, we learnt to accept others as they are, give them space to share their personal stories and learn their own truth. We welcomed Hafidzurahman, from Ahmadiyah, a group on behalf of themselves as part of Islam adherents on the session of healing historical wounds. Throughout his personal experiences, he shared his journey of faith as part of Ahmadiyah. Beben, from the mass organization of Ikatan Jamaah Ahlul Bait Indonesia (IJABI) or Indonesian Assembly of Ahululbayt Association, a Shia Muslim organization model of Indonesia felt so grateful to get a space given to share the organizational experiences. “As part of Indonesian, we also had some social activities.” Leonardus O. Magai, executive director of Progressive Democrative Papua (Prodewa) Papua shared his personal experiences as Papuan and perspectives on bridging the gap between young people from Papua and non-Papuan. “The conflict on justice and public facilities such as health and education are still ongoing issues in Papua. Before we talk about the future, let us heal from the future and there is always hope for a better future. Having been born in Papua, I together with friends support youth from Papua through the youth development program.” The lessons learnt are no matter where we are from, no matter what our background is, each one of us has roles to play and contribute in order to make our country better.
Ahmad Mansur led a session on honest conversations. We had an activity where each participant is given responsibility as a speaker, listener, and note taker. This was a practice for the participants to learn how to share stories openly, listen without judgment and focus on what the speaker said by writing what he or she shared. One participant shared that this activity was important to be a good listener in which the participants were encouraged to listen without interruption.
We also listened to stories shared from some participants. Nashat from Iraq has been staying in Indonesia for 6 years. He was a dentist graduated from Ukraine where he had to be sent as refugee to Indonesia. “I had no idea about Indonesia and as refugee I don’t have public facilities easily such as health insurance. I said to myself that there is always hope. I decided to be a volunteer in the refugee community. Unfortunately, I had a lot of perspectives that refugees are uneducated people.” In 2017 Nashat and his friends established a community called Hope Learning Center in which the child refugees joined classes such as English class. The community was started with 5 students only and now there are 250 students in the center. They are concerned with engagement, transparency, effective communication, listening and understanding, truth-telling and positivity in the community. Through Hope Learning Center, Nashat and friends implemented peace with refugees’ community, build trust between refugees and Indonesian local people, and create space for refugees to express their opinions and listen to them. He also initiated charity clinics for refugees. “In 2017 I met IofC through Asia Pacific Life Matters Course (LMC) and the IofC team came to visit the Hope Learning Center in Bogor. IofC has influenced my life and society on developing friendship and relationship in my community, listening to people and understanding them better, keeping an open mind, gaining conflict resolution skills and making better decisions.”
Daniel, an Adventist from the United States of America shared his experiences when coming to Indonesia. He shared about the prejudice he had with local people in Indonesia and so did the local people. Daniel, his wife and their baby are based in Ciwidey in which they provide health classes, hand on training, community service, care group and build Muslim relations there. His sharing inspired the participants on how he spreads love and positivity to people whose different background with him.
Today’s session was ended with expression night and sharing from friends who come from different communities such as Jaringan Kerja Antar Umat Beragama (Jakatarub), Sekolah Damai Indonesia (Sekodi) or Bandung School of Peace who comes for the youth peace and other social issues, Young Interfaith Peacemaker Community (YIPC) Bandung, Prodewa Papua, and Searah Community.
On the last day of the camp, we played Friends for Life card games and Pest Attack boardgame, media tools designed to share their personal stories by reflecting on questions in the card game and playing board games which include the message of four core values. This becomes playful and fun ways to build trustful connections especially among young leaders.
As the highlight of the camp, we learn to turn reflection into actions. Some participants shared that they were inspired by quiet times. “Being disciplined of having regular quiet times will be one of the actions I will take after the camp,” one participant shared. Sonny, facilitator of the Trustbuilding who is also the co-founder of Sekolah Damai Indonesia said, “For me the quiet time session was the highlight of this camp. The reflection impacted positively for me. I will continue to practice quiet time.” Another participant shared that he appreciated the spaces given to him to share in the family group. “I feel accepted and listened to. Thank you so much for the safe space.”
One of the Trustbuilding camp follow up will be community outreach and monthly gathering to have quiet times and exercises together. We ended the session with a peaceful heart and hope. Hope is one thing that can help us get through the past and create new stories for a better future.
Yofrina Octika Gultom