I think empathy is what I remember most about the training. My house is off the main road, down a slight hill. I noticed one day that our road was getting muddy and this had never been a problem before. On my way home from work I saw that the problem was the result of a family on the main road blocking the usual drainage system, causing my road to start to flood. This made me angry and I decided to go and confront them.
On my way to the house something reminded me to consider why they might have decided to block the road in the first place…I don’t know what it was…just a nagging reminder. So when I got there, I didn’t begin by scolding him but rather by asking him the simple question of why he’d decided to stop the drainage. He proceeded to tell me that his family was really suffering from a lack of water to grow their home garden and he was desperate to get water so his vegetables would grow and he’d have food to feed his family. Well, guess what, all the sudden my road didn’t seem so flooded any longer. I realized that I could live with a little mud so that he could have enough water. Now when we see each other we are friendly whereas before we didn’t even notice one another.
-Prison Official, trained by C2 participant
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