Nataliya Sofiy, REYN member from Ukraine, shares her Power Point presentation describing the “Embracing Diversity – Creating Equitable Societies through Personal Transformation” REYN training held in Belgrade. The training was attended by 28 participants from 13 countries.

1. REYN Training
in Belgrade, Serbia
23rd and 27th of June 2014
Embracing Diversity - Creating Equitable
Societies trough Personal Transformation

2. Trainers:
• Zorica Trikic, MA, ISSA Senior Program Manager and
Romani Early Years Network Coordinator
• Jelena Vranjesevic, PhD, Faculty of Philosophy,
Belgrade University

3. Participants:
• There were 28 participants
from 13 countries:
• Serbia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Kosovo,
Albania, Italy, Belgium,
Latvia, Ireland, Ukraine,
Bolgaria and Hungary

4. With amazing people in the wonderful
atmosphere in Belgrade

5. We did:

6. Day1. We’ve learned about ourselves: the
common portrait of participant
• Direct and honest
• Volunteer
• Humanitarian studies
(philology, psychology,
sociology, pedagogy)
• Active
• Lifelong learning
• REYN member =)

7. Day1. We’ve learned about problem solutions
Naming
(giving a proper name
for the problem)
Voicing
(active involvement
trough dialogue)
Building allies
(we cannot solve it alone,
we need team)

8. Day1. We’ve learned about stereotypes and
prejudices by playng “Derdians” game
• Stereotypes have real power
• Prejudices include strong
emotional relations
• Prejudices are resistant to
change
• Stereotypes are unjustified
generalizations
• We jumped into stereotypes
about “wild” and “illiterate”
derdians even being aware of
power of prejudices

9. Day2. We’ve learned about DIE model
• We usually jump from
description of fact (what we
really see) to interpretation of it
without knowing the real
situation and than we evaluate
it so that we easily can come to
discrimination
• Instead of DIE model more
close to truth is making
assumptions about probable
reasons that cause fact
Interpretation
Evaluation
Description

10. Day2. We’ve learned about “Blaming the victim”
mechanism by “Building towers” game
• “Blame the victim theory” places
causes of social problems in one who is
suffering, and not in characteristics of
his living conditions Problems are
explained/solved without changing the
conditions that create them.
• Paradox of competetive individualism
is in belief that the personal gain is the
most important, that the others are less
important, which hinders the
development of individuality.

11. Day2. We’ve learned about oppression and it’s
manifestations
• oppression matrix;
• explicit/implicit, conscious/unconscious oppression;
• the cultural/institutional and individual level of oppression

12. Day3. We’ve learned about openness by
playing “Fruit game”
• To avoid drama – separate
feelings from thoughts
• Focusing on our feelings
about otherness
• Development of
intercultural sensitivity
• Risk factors in
intercultural learning
• Needs inventory

13. Day3. We’ve learned about “Building allies –
how to be an effective ally”
• Empathy (quality listening,
focusing on other’s needs,
reflection of other’s feelings,
noticing other’s physical and
emotional state)
• Effective ally (knows what’s
opression, understands situation,
responses to target group,
expects support from other allies,
knows that he/she is responsible
for humanizing society, has
his/her own identity, has patience
and good sense of humor)

14. And some useful tips from training provided by Zorica-dawn:
• Build allies
• Share responsibility
• Awareness
• Focus on needs
• Don’t use position either/nor
• Openness
• Always ask yourself: what will make life more beautiful?