CARE INTERNATIONAL TRAININGS
From 1995 to 2001 IMTD trained CARE officials in conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Jordan, and the U.S.
IMTD has had the opportunity to work closely with the relief organization known as CARE International in a mutually rewarding relationship that has built connections between the fields of conflict resolution and relief and development. IMTD has designed and conducted a series of training workshops with CARE, both for country offices and for regional gatherings. These workshops have provided CARE staff with the conceptual framework to analyze conflict and the skills necessary to carry out their work effectively in regions of conflict.
In 1995, IMTD signed a contract with CARE to train senior international staff in Nairobi, Kenya in January 1996. 42 senior CARE officials participated in the workshop. They explored the basic principles of conflict resolution, examined the interactions between relief, development, and conflict resolution activities, and considered specific implications for CARE in its work in East Africa and around the world.
One of the participants, the Country Director for CARE-Tanzania, then invited IMTD to provide a second training for her staff in November 1996 in Ngara, Tanzania. The training was attended by nineteen CARE-Tanzania staff, who were working in a Rwandan refugee camp. The purpose of the Tanzania workshop was to enhance CARE-Tanzania staff’s abilities to carry out relief and development in an area laden with conflict.
The next CARE training was held in Freetown, Sierra Leone in March 1997. Country Directors from Southern and Western Africa attended the five-day workshop. Each of the participants formed their own goals; developing country-level action plans using one of three lenses examined during the course of the workshop: conflict analysis, Aikido, and “do no harm.”
In August 1997, IMTD participated in the CARE Senior Manager’s Course in Guatemala. This session focused on how CARE can use conflict resolution in its activities. Participants were asked to apply conflict analysis tools to a particular case study in order to better understand CARE’s work in a conflict situation.
In June 1998, 31 participants from CARE country offices in the Balkans and the Middle East gathered in Amman, Jordan for a five-day workshop. The workshop followed a similar structure as the others. On the final day, participants applied conflict resolution to their work by developing country-level action plans.
In April 1999, 26 participants took part in a five-day workshop facilitated by IMTD in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. Participants came from CARE offices in southern ASIA. The workshop covered the basic principles, concepts, and skills of conflict resolution.
In 1999 and 2000, IMTD trainers traveled to Kandy, Sri Lanka to conduct three-day follow-on workshops for CARE-Sri Lanka. The workshops were designed to openly recognize and deal with issues of conflict in Sri Lanka, and within CARE. Staff members from offices throughout the country and at all levels of seniority attended the workshop. In 2001 Louise Diamond led an IMTD training team to Atlanta which carried out a number of sessions on Diversity for headquarters staff and then in May 2002, took the training program to Nairobi for the benefit of CARE international staff.