The Africa Region recently ran Dialogue for Peace facilitators' training in South Africa - the first time that Dialogue for Peace training has been offered online. Kathleen Godfrey led an international team of Dialogue for Peace traininers in providing training for more than 30 volunteers of all ages in Scouts South Africa.

The training was run over the course of two weeks, on Saturday afternoons and in evenings. Although there was a lot of content to be covered, Kathleen and the team of facilitators helped us learn the material with use of interactive whiteboards and tools, helping us all to feel involved in the learning process.

The highlight of the training for me was the dialogue circles, where we had an opportunity to practice the skills we had learned about- by facilitating dialogue on a series of controversial topics suggested by the course participants. These discussions were carried out in groups that were diverse in age, scouting experience and province, and it was deeply rewarding to spend this time both practicing these skills and getting to know the points of view of other volunteers from around the country.

Although it was a little difficult to play online, the Dialogo boardgame was an interesting tool for facilitating some of these discussions, and I am looking forward to using it in a face to face activity to guide some dialogue around difficult topics.

Mural.co and menti.com were used for some of the interactive sessions, and both of these are tools that I look forward to using for training going forward.

Since I first learned about the DIalogue for Peace programme, I have been hoping to find a way to go on this training and spread it more widely in South Africa. I have already volunteered to help with facilitating future training, and am really looking forward to seeing how the participants of this course implement the idea of dialogue in their home districts and regions.