How to Plan a Conference (Peace Conference Round 1)

[Some of my favorite from the conference ]

One of my November highlights was a conference that I was involved in planning. Last year, we received special funding for a three-year conference series on peace mainstreaming. Not everyone or every organization has the good fortune of being directly involved in peacebuilding in their work. However, we can all use these values is our everyday work and lives. And so, mid-November, we kicked off our first in the series of three. We had two main goals, help out partners build a small knowledge of peace, and secondly to better know each other. 

It was a huge success. Cambodians are huge fans of going away for conferences, and so in keeping with this exception we went to Kep, a sleepy little seaside town, famous for its tasty seafood and laid-back vibe. We invited all our 14 partners to sent two representatives, bringing in a total of around 30 participants. We had an oddly diverse group of individuals representing the oddest collection of sectors: rural agriculture  education, youth sports, handicrafts, and peace. We also had two Buddhist monks from a new education partner, a first for us in recent years. It was very rewarding to watch the participants become more comfortable with each other over the 3 days, even though they were coming from such very different work sectors.

Something which greatly excited me was that the entire event was entirely in the Khmer language. I don't speak Khmer, so I didn't understand the content, but it's not about me. So often, in Cambodia, training and workshops are held in English, which limits who can attend and the depth of the content covered. From the beginning, we wanted this to be in Khmer so participants (particularly those from the rural provinces) could feel comfortable speaking their native language and build relationships with representatives from other Cambodian organizations.

My partner Peace Bridges came off as the superstar. The director Mony (who I have the pleasure of working with) facilitated. I was immensely proud of this, and honored that he saw it as way to give back. Over the last 10 years, Mony has developed into an extremely skilled facilitator. We covered responses to conflict, human needs theory, and nonviolent communication which was new to most participants and they loved the games and interactive learning experience. 

Some highlights of the conference included:

• Eating plenty of seafood, especially crab. (Before returning, we stopped at the local crab market so people could purchase crab to bring back to their families. This only took two hours, but the fish goes from the ocean, cooked, and in a cooler box within that time frame.)
• Playing games on the beach and swimming in the ocean. We played one game just for fun and one team-building game for which we had a massive crowd of spectators watching us. This was followed by ocean swimming.
• Breakfast and tea time by the ocean every morning. We were very fortunate to find a lovely hotel right on the ocean willing to accommodate our noise.

You know a conference has been successful when the participants later “friend” each other on Facebook.  It’s the way we do business these days. I look forwards to the second conference this upcoming summer. Because when people are meeting and talking and sharing stories, sometimes it honestly feels like being here, and those hours and hours of frustrating reporting might actually be worth it.