Pre Departure + one week experience in Bangkok

PRE-DEPARTURE AND ONE WEEK EXPERIENCE IN BANGKOK

I received the message of my being selected to participate in the January 2011 session of the Rotary Peace fellowship on 25^th October 2010 and that was when my excitement started as I was considered for such a highly competitive offer of international repute. This gesture was followed by letters of congratulations from different important personalities from my sponsoring Rotary Club & District (Rotary eClub of the SW USA, District 5510), The Rotary International Office, Rotary Center for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution, University of Chulalongkorn, Bangkok as well as my Mentor in Nigeria (Abraham Fateh, Rotary Peace Fellow).

This offer put me on my heels as I had to put many things in place towards ensuring a smooth take off for the training. My pre-departure experience was characterized by so much irregularities and challenges that pushed me to an extreme of almost giving up participating in the fellowship. Some of the unfriendly experience is the repeated occurrence of conflicts within my city of residence (Jos, Nigeria). This affected the processing of my travelling documents as the security situation was not good for moving around. In some cases I was compelled to pay more than 100% of the normal transportation charges to ensure that I meet up with the traveling schedule. Other challenges like multiple public holidays in my country during the festive season of Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year day celebrations really hampered my documentation process as most of the government officers were not available to process these documents. My full assurance of participating in the fellowship came to me the last working day prior to my departure date during which I was contemplating to request for the shifting of my session to the next available session. 

This offer to me was the opportunity of traveling beyond the African continent for the first time as the experience was not only interesting but more of a life-saving adventure. The journey which lasted for little above 12 hours was quite a memorial journey as it went on smoothly without any iota of hitch. My first challenge in Bangkok upon arrival was having to use my hands to communicate with the few Thai citizens I met as I was not familiar with Thai language this experience was to continue for sometimes until when I met the very friendly Rotary Center staff and other fellows from different parts of the world where I could freely communicate comfortably in English language again.

The commencement of the training on the 13^th January witnessed the welcoming of  the participating fellows by the Center Director and followed by the introduction of  Rotary center staff and fellows by Jenn Weidman (Deputy Director). The introduction which was very detailed gave all of us sense of humour and satisfaction as after that all were at home with each other. The involvement of all the center staff in the orientation makes the programme to me more of an all encompassing matter coupled with the simplistic and liberal leader ship capability of Jenn I sensed a cloud of fulfillment among the fellows. The immediate payment of the monthly stipend for the month of January to all fellows on the day the programme commenced was another good gesture to behold and worthy of commendation.

The second day of the training was dedicated to Individual Conflict Presentation (ICP) by all the fellows with each allowed 8 minutes to make the ICP presentation on an area of conflict he or she works with. This opened the floor for interactions and discussions. My presentation was made on ‘Jos Crisis: Man’s Inhumanity to Man’ during which I highlighted the issues surrounding the conflicts and my involvements as well as attempts and efforts being made in proffering solutions. 

The main training started by featuring a distinguish scholar of International repute in person of Professor Tom Woodhouse who is the Academic Director of Rotary Center for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution at the University of Bradford, UK. The module was co-presented with Mrs. Irene M. Santiago, founding Chair and CEO of Mindanao Commission on Women and the Convener of Mothers of Peace. Their session which lasted for 5 days focused on the concepts and values of peace and conflict studies. Their wealth of experience in Peace and conflict studies exposed the fellows on various state of the art theories in conflict resolutions in which different classic models and theories where examined in a highly interactive sessions. These sessions were characterized by moments of reflections and self examination of all the participants. Other areas that were extensively dealt with by the scholars are, The Nature and types of conflict, Root causes of conflict and the roles  of Gender in conflict resolution. On the overall assessment the sessions was so challenging as it provoked and challenged fellows into making frantic commitment playing active roles in peace making.