In a nutshell, participants said they have learned to analyse violence in the society, understand how they react and interact to/with it, and how they can creatively engage in nonviolent conflict resolution.

One participant said: “This training helped some of us realize lots of things, such as types of oppression that we never realized before.” While another one commented: “I noticed that I don’t really know how to express my feelings in a nonviolent way, and this could really help me in the future. I got lots of ideas on which I will work and learned loads of things.”

Application of Nonviolence; Participant Responses

We asked participants: “How would you apply nonviolence in your work environment, community and life in general?”

• “Nonviolence is much wider than I knew before coming to the training. It always starts with myself, and can even apply to what kind of cleaning products I’m using. Also my way of communicating in daily life, giving space to others by listening emphatically are ways to implement nonviolence actively.”
• “I got many ideas on what I can do/how I could act or in which way I might think when having a chance to respond to violence in a nonviolent way”.
• “I will apply nonviolence in my life by being emphatic, being aware about the nonviolent principles, respecting others as they are and understanding the unity in diversity concept.”

Moreover, during the training invited three NGOs, Peace Brigades International, Global Human Rights Defense and International Fellowship of Reconciliation, to present their work, to show different applications of Nonviolence. This also allowed participants to create a network with actors of Civil Society. 

Nonviolent Family

The shared living space allowed participants to deepen their social skills respecting the others and their boundaries, moods, differences in behaviours and attitudes. “You did a great job putting together loads of important concepts and ideas, and you also managed to make us feel in a nonviolent community, which I find really important.”

One of the participants also wrote an article in Dutch about the “Nonviolent Family” published here.

Making music together & cooking together
        

Below you can watch videos in which you can hear participants speak about the ToNoWo experience.

Everyone one word:

Finally, on the last day, the trainers found this nice scene outside, laid out by the participants :-). 12 intense days learning together; what a lvely experience!