[Vision2020] Public Conversations Project

[Melynda Huskey]

I've been working in my day job with an organization called The Public 
Conversations Project, and I think they have a perspective which might be 
useful in our current context:

PCP provides training and resources for facilitators who convene 
carefully-planned small group conversations in communities facing 
ideological division--among pro-choice and pro-life activists, for example.  
It's a model that's worked well in some very volatile situations.

They say about themselves:

"We design and facilitate conversations in which people who have become 
destructively divided by their differences can:

"deliberately avoid repeating their habitual, unproductive ways of relating 
and, instead

"develop new modes of communicating that lead to mutual understanding, 
respect and trust.

"Why? So that…

"their differences can be stated constructively and truly heard by people of 
other perspectives, perhaps for the first time;

"their own reflection on the issue can be enriched by other perspectives, 
aspects of which they may find surprisingly resonant with their own 
experiences and values;

"their common concerns can be discovered, appreciated, and—if the 
participants wish—used as a basis for collaboration and problem-solving; and

"the toll of the conflict—on resources, on individuals, organizations, and 
society—can be decreased."

www.publicconversations.org

I encourage anyone who might be interested to take a look at the 
website--there's all kinds of information there.  If there's some agreement 
that this approach might be a useful one, I'd be happy to share what I know 
and my materials, and to collaborate with others in developing some 
dialogues with the goals of moving beyond stereotypes and polarization, and 
developing more constructive ways of communicating and relating.

Melynda Huskey

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