“ It is not that we are stubborn, recalcitrant, and unable to learn, but that a wall has formed between us.”

• Raja Khouri & Jeffrey wilkinson

Healing Process Facilitation

The subject of Israel-Palestine has often been deeply polarized and polarizing. The history is long , complex, and hotly debated. Trauma-driven emotions run high and often border on the irrational. Long-baked stereotypes, ossified beliefs, and entrenched notions abound.

University campuses have seen more than their fair share of conflict between students, faculty, and staff. Exacerbated by social media and external influences, such tensions have resulted in an atmosphere of distrust, fear, and acrimony, ending friendships, pitting groups against each other, and drastically disrupting student life. 

Conversations Without Walls offers an approach that lowers tensions, promotes healing and repair, and leads to a return to campus harmony. Our approach is rooted in learning about trauma stemming from experiencing danger and fear within particular student collectives formed out of identity and shared values and beliefs. The bond that forms can create an almost impenetrable wall that works to resist any alternative narratives or beliefs.

University administrations have often struggled with these conflicts and lacked the necessary expertise to constructively diffuse them. CWW believes that conflict can be alleviated by providing safe spaces for compassionate listening, sharing of narratives, and the expansion of one’s view to include “the other’s” story .

CWW is uniquely able to facilitate these types of listening circles given its thorough knowledge of both narratives, its expertise in trauma-driven behaviour, and its capacity for compassionate listening.