Sharing an article by one of our members: By Gerald S. Clay and Fletcher Knebel “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” – Vince Lombardi No American quotation so misrepresents the essence of modern life as that ascribed to the late Vincent Lombardi, coach of the Green Bay Packers, who purportedly tossed off the famous line about winning. The sole purpose of the game, the remark implied, was not the playing of it, but the winning of it. However pertinent the comment might be for professional sports—and even there it fails to reflect reality by a wide margin—as a metaphor for life, Lombardi’s enshrinement of victory is junk psychology. For every minute of our lives bent toward winning, we spend hours and days adjusting, accommodating and compromising. Most of society’s rituals, customs, and advisories on behavior serve to avoid rather than incite the struggles that result in winners and losers. Games and sports, as prevalent and popular as they are, belong to a world apart. Games take place in a highly artificial, structured environment. They have rigid rules designed to yield winners and losers in every contest. But life beyond games features elastic rules, limitless ambiguity, and wide areas where winning becomes irrelevant and the pursuit of victory seems ludicrous at best and perilous at worst. Short of war, modern life holds only restricted fields in which winning over losers is the goal. Games, both physical and mental, yes. Gambling, yes. Beauty, endurance, and muscle-bulging contests, yes. Running for political office should not belong to the same category as these—and yet, it is constantly framed as such. Elections as they currently exist are defined by the idea of winners and losers: we obsessively track candidates’ standing in polls and their ‘electability’ more than we interrogate their values and histories. The…
Author: Lisa Nakao
We would love to share your thoughts and help you network with peacebuilders in Hawaii at CRAHawaii.org website! If you are hosting an event relating to peacebuilding/conflict resolution, we would love to help you promote it. Please submit your event information at https://www.crahawaii.org/contact/. Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA) members: If you have any articles you would like us to post or share at CRAHawaii.org, or presentation or workshop ideas to support peacebuilding/conflict resolution community in Hawaii, please submit it at https://www.crahawaii.org/contact/. Please contact us at info@crahawaii.org if you have any questions.
Community re-opening plans and policies are changing so frequently and rapidly to react and adapt to the new daily discoveries in uncharted territories. As we get ready to welcome back visitors to the islands from various different communities, much needed “hope” is starting to roll in along with new sets of uncertainties and fears to our community. According to Accipio, unpredictability, stress, conflicting access to resources, perceptions and personal values are some of the causes of conflict. We have seen so many conflicts in our society already, and we can expect to see many more along our road to recovery. They need to be adressed quickly so that our community is able to pivot and adapt to the new norm quickly and thrive together. This is a prime time for us, the conflict resolution professionals and advocates, to play a critical role in supporting the community. We have tools to meet wherever the conflicts are and knowledge and ability to offer options in how disputes are resolved and how parties can participate, to create an optimum environment to make people feel safe and foster resolution. In order to do this well, we need to be sure that we are well. Matsunaga Institute for Peace’s webinar recording of the “De-Stressing:laughing Your Way Through These Unprecedented Times” by Lu and Tom Digrazia is available at https://youtu.be/fDSTEV2pLt8. Hope you are all well because our community needs us more than ever.
Aloha, Here is a related 2-Day Free Training for qualified 40 participants… The William S. Richardson School of Law’s Conflict Management Institute (CMI) is pleased to offer an exciting opportunity to participate in a free online dispute resolution (ODR) training conducted by nationally recognized experts Jim Melamed, Colin Rule and Clare Fowler. This opportunity is limited to the first 40 registrants who meet the criteria of being an experienced mediator. If you are unable to attend, the video of the training will be posted on the William S. Richardson School of Law’s website. If you are an experienced mediator and are interested in participating in the two-day training on June 18th and June 19th, please click on the link below. MEDIATING ONLINE: A PRIMER https://www.mediate.com/products/pg1367.cfm This training is sponsored by the William S. Richardson School of Law’s Conflict Management Institute (CMI). CMI helps legal, business, and community leaders maximize the use of collaborative conflict management strategies.
Aloha Conflict Resolution Alliance Community, Sharing information about upcoming event on ODR on June 18… The William S. Richardson School of Law’s Conflict Management Institute is hosting the second presentation in its 2020 Conflict Management Speakers Series. This second timely presentation will focus on online dispute resolution (ODR). Nationally recognized ODR experts, Jim Melamed and Colin Rule, will present on current ODR trends and the future of ODR. We hope you will join us to learn more about ODR and how we can incorporate best practices into Hawaii’s business community. To register for the event, please click on the link below. ONLINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (ODR): WHERE’S IT AT, AND WHERE’S IT GOING? https://www.mediate.com/products/pg1365.cfm The William S. Richardson School of Law’s Conflict Management Institute (CMI) helps legal, business, and community leaders maximize the use of collaborative conflict management strategies. The 2020 Conflict Management Speaker’s Series is the first in CMI’s offerings of short programs, CLEs, and continuing education courses for attorneys, business professionals, executives, and community leaders.
Aloha Conflict Resolution Alliance Community! We could all use some help in finding peace in the new norm we are living in now to help us continue our important work in helping others resolve conflicts peacefully. We wanted to share information about the free online training opportunity presented by: The Hawai‘i State Judiciary Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution & Matsunaga Institute for Peace “De-stressing: Laughing Your Way Through These Unprecedented Times” with Tom DiGrazia Friday, June 5, 2020 11 AM -12:15 PM HST Register here, https://bit.ly/3cUnTTP (Details for logging into the Zoom meeting will be provided the week of the event) About Event: Mediation Meets Meditation: Learn Yoga exercises that can be done from the comfort of your remote workplace in order to de-stress. No prior experience necessary. About Tom DiGrazia: Tom has been a lawyer and professional peacemaker/mediator for 50 years and has studied, practiced and taught Yoga since 1975. As a registered 500-hr.-E-RYT with the Yoga Alliance, he teaches private classes at the YSK Yoga studio in Kailua, Hawai‘i. Co-Sponsors: Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA), Hawai‘i State Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section (HSBA-ADR), The Mediation Center of the Pacific (MCP)
Update on the Rapid Response Mediation Program Please note that currently only The Mediation Center of the Pacific on O‘ahu, Ku‘ikahi Mediation Center on Hawai‘i Island and West Hawaii Mediation Center on Hawai‘i Island are offering the Rapid Response Landlord Tenant Mediation Program. Please contact those three centers directly to learn more about their respective programs. We apologize for any confusion.
The fight against the Novel Coronavirus has created financial hardships for many. Tenants are stretched to pay their rent, and landlords are worried about how to pay their own bills. If landlords and tenants don’t talk now and work out payment plans, they may find themselves fighting in a back-logged eviction process when the moratorium is lifted. To assist in these negotiations and maintain a positive working relationships, there is a service available through community mediation centers, called Rapid Response Mediation Program. The Rapid Response Mediation Program offers mediation through videoconference, telephone, or a secure text-based online platform. An impartial mediator helps property managers or landlords and tenants to discuss a variety of options that will enable landlords to continue receiving some amount of payment and tenants to craft a realistic future for remaining in their home. Because of the immediate community need for this service, the Rapid Response Program is being offered for no cost. If you have tenants or are a tenant that have difficulty paying their rent due to furloughs, layoffs or other complications from the COVID-19 crisis, please call contact the mediation center on your island below and schedule a mediation through this free program. Here is the program flyer. Oahu: The Mediation Center of the Pacific 1301 Young Street, 2nd Floor Honolulu, Hawai`i 96814 Telephone: 808-521-6767 Fax: 808-538-1454 www.mediatehawaii.org Big Island: Ku`ikahi Mediation Center 101 Aupuni Street, Suite PH 1014 B-2 Hilo, Hawai`i 96720 Telephone: 808-935-7844 Fax: (808) 961-9727 www.hawaiimediation.org West Hawai`i Mediation Center P.O. Box 7020 Kamuela, Hawai`i 96743 Telephone: 808-885-5525 Fax: (808) 887-0525 www.whmediation.org
Public Policy Mediator Susan Podziba shared her wisdom on “Mediating Polarized Public Policy Disputes” at the William S. Richardson School of Law on February 12, 2020. One of her responses to a question left me with the impression that she had never before witnessed such extreme polarization in public policy disputes as in the last several years…it seemed that for some parties the truth no longer matters. She seemed to acknowledge added difficulties in mediating and facilitating resolutions in the current political environment. My daily readings about current events concurred with her description. I could not help but wonder why it might be so. Why don’t facts seem to matter anymore? Why doesn’t it seem to matter that outlandish lies are repeated over and over again and new ones proliferate incessantly? Why do conspiracy theories and fake stories seem to dominate the news? Why doesn’t science seem to matter? Jason Stanley’s book, “How Fascism Works,” gave me a deeper understanding of our current events. The lessons I got are best summarized in the book’s Introduction, excerpts of which are attached. If you are interested in facilitating public policy discussions, or in mediating public policy disputes, or if you simply want to know a bit more about what’s happening in present day politics, this is a must read book. The more we educate ourselves, the more we can use our skills and knowledge to work for a healthier society for all.
Message from Matsunaga Institute for Peace… Another great free resource from the Institute for Humane Education for youth sixth grade and up: The FREE guidebook for youth and changemakers, How to Be a Solutionary: A Guide for People Who Want to Make a Positive Difference. A guidebook that offers a step-by-step process to become a solutionary. Solutionaries are people who can identify problems and their causes, find strategic leverage points for change, and develop and implement solutions that do the most good and least harm for all life. Our world is full of solutionaries just waiting to emerge! Learning to be skilled researchers, fact-checkers, solutionary thinkers, and successful change agents will provide meaningful and important work for young people, as well as adults, especially at this time of great risk and opportunity for our global community. It will turn a difficult and challenging time into an opportunity to make a powerful difference, build thinking and life skills of great value, and potentially lead to unprecedented learning and action. As you may know, IHE produced a free Solutionary Guidebook for teachers and parents this past winter, and we’re thrilled that more than 800 educators have downloaded it since December, using it to help their students become solutionaries. Now students – and all activists – have their own companion guidebook!