Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA)
Join us for the Difficult Conversation Series that is a series of six virtual interactive workshops that will help you be ready to have difficult conversations in our professional and personal lives. More information in attachment and at https://difficultconversation.eventbrite.com.
The year 2020 has been truely unique. The challenges we have faced revealed our personal and community strengths and weaknesses, made us re-evaluate many aspects of our lives, and enabled us to make numerous pivots and adjustments in reaction. As we continue to ride the waves of new realities, your Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA) has been busy planning virtual events to help you excel in resolving conflicts and building peace in our new norm!To kick off the fall events, the “Talk Story” event is scheduled on August 26, 2020 for you to share & learn Best Practices & Regulatory Considerations of Remote ADR Platforms, followed by a series of seven “Difficult Conversation” workshops to help you navigate those conversations well. Hope you can all join us! All events are virtual and you don’t have to leave your office or home to attend. (And as long as you have a shirt on, you meet the event dress code, too 🙂 ) Check out all CRA events along with other conflict resolution/peace building events information posted at our event page. If you know of any events that will help develop peacebuilders in Hawaii you would like us to share on our event page, please reach out at our contact page.
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
By Tracey Wiltgen and Tom Mitrano Full story is posted at: https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/05/03/editorial/insight/tenants-feel-the-squeeze-socially-distant-mediation-can-aid-landlord-tenant/ With thousands of layoffs and furloughs, tenants are stretched to pay their rent, and property owners are worried about how they will pay their mortgage and other bills. If owners and tenants do not talk and work out payment plans, they may find themselves in bitter disputes frustrated by a back-logged eviction process now and then later when the stay-at-home moratorium is lifted. In response, the five mediation centers recently created a joint “Rapid Response Owner-Tenant Mediation Program.” Using videoconference, telephone or a secure online platform, an impartial mediator helps owners and tenants discuss options, such as payment plans, temporary rent reduction, deferred payments, and other creative solutions. The goal is finding a way for owners to receive some fair level of payment that also lets tenants stay at home. The incentive to compromise is clear: Making a plan, even a temporary one, can help relieve fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the future. The community mediation centers are providing the owner-tenant mediation services at no cost to the participants. Mediation cannot solve all problems. But even during a pandemic, mediators need to — and can — use safe, civil, and respectful ways to solve conflicts and take their services, socially distanced, directly to people who want these services, wherever they are.
The Ceeds of Peace Train is now live! We will match those who need digital, learning, and wellness resources with those who have them to spare in our beloved community. Please go to www.ceedsofpeace.org/covid-19-response and share the below with all you know to help us challenge resource inequity on our islands. Aloha!
Aloha, We enjoyed a lovely evening gathering at the 2019 ACR Hawaii Annual Meeting. Hope you were able to join us. In case you missed it, here is what happened at the meeting. New Board of Directors and Officers were elected. Congratulations! Click here to see our new leaders. Our members also voted on two items: Shall ACR Hawaii’s status as a chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution be terminated and shall it become an independent non-profit, tax exempt organization by the end of 2020? -> Approved. Shall the Board be authorized to decide the new name of the organization? -> Approved. Recapped what we did this year: Then, Tom & Dick reminisced John F. Kennedy and his achievements, and shared how the tools of his success can be applied to our work as conflict resolver / peacebuilder. Special Mahalo to 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Education Center for graciously welcoming us. We had a great time!
Aloha, Please join us for our annual meeting, dinner gathering, lively discussion, and voting on important matters! ACR Hawaii members will be asked to vote on the following: 1. Shall ACR Hawaii’s status as a chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution be terminated and shall it become an independent non-profit, tax exempt organization by the end of 2020? 2. (If the vote on #1. above is yes) Shall the Board be authorized to decide the new name of the organization? Explanation: The Board requests final authority on the new name in order to streamline the decision making process. The Board recommends that the new name be “Conflict Resolution Alliance”, however, the Board will take into consideration suggestions by members submitted by the end of the Annual Meeting, if there are any. This means that if you would like to provide input on the new name, you should give us your suggestions by the end of the Annual Meeting. There will be a sheet at the Annual Meeting where you can provide a new name suggestion, along with your contact information for any follow-up. For registration and more details, please go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-annual-meeting-remembering-jfk-let-us-never-fear-to-negotiate-tickets-74634055469
It has been a difficult year filled with conflicts. Excessively aggressive behaviors lacking concerns for others were observed at all levels of our society. The skills we offer as practitioners or advocates of dispute resolution and facilitation are desperately needed! Let’s take a moment to focus on what each of us can do to positively contribute to the world on this Conflict Resolution Day, October 18, 2018. We can: Start small by being kind to others (see 5:1 Kindness Challenge Pledge), Sharing with your friends and family in dispute that there are ways to peacefully resolve disagreements (see Options to Resolve Conflicts Peacefully), or Offer peacemaking skills to help your community solve challenging issues (see Calling All Peacemakers!), etc. Let’s do it!
5:1 Kindness Challenge Pledge Be Kind, Small Kine and Bank’um. What separates healthy and happy relationships from miserable ones is a balance of positive to negative interactions. Studies in the field of social psychology1 show that it takes five positive interactions to make up for every one bad encounter you have with someone. It is called the 5:1 Magic Ratio. Think of it as a simple formula for building healthy relationships (at home or at work2). And, consider the impact beyond building relationships. We experience approximately 20,000 individual moments in a waking day each lasting just a few seconds.3 The moments that make an indelible mark on our memory are not the neutral encounters we have with others, but the ones that are either positive or negative. Even though these encounters are only seconds long, they can be life-changing. If you can change someone’s life in just a few seconds, why not make it for the better! Pay someone a compliment. Offer a few encouraging words. Give a two thumbs ups. Smile and gesture a show of appreciation. Make someone laugh. These simple actions can make someone’s day. The good news is that you can bank good actions or encounters. After all, we are human and we all have momentary lapses in judgement, or mindless, rushed moments when we don’t know what we are leaving in our wake. So, while you are consciously making someone’s day with a kind gesture, you are banking positive encounters to balance the scale when your lesser self takes over. We challenge you to the Magic Ratio Kindness Challenge: Be Kind, Small Kine. By signing the Kindness Challenge Pledge you commit to banking five (5) positive encounters each day during the month of October (that is 155 kind acts if you start on October 1,…