There has never been a clear boundary between our primary school in my community and one family’s land that borders on it. This case remains unresolved and has already been considered at the village, commune, and district levels.
Sure that their property goes 5 meters into the school yard, the family cleared the land, expanded their pond, and planted a garden. It was only after this was done that the school announced the need for expansion and demanded that the family get off the land that had, until recently been considered part of the school grounds. From the family’s perspective, the school should have made this claim long ago- why wait until now to say it belongs to them and not on the first day they started clearing?
The school’s reaction so far has been to get thumb prints from many families to force the family to give up the land but so far they have been unsuccessful. My wife was one of the teachers in the school and was familiar with what I learned from Peace Bridges, particularly related to conflict resolution and told the school principal I might be able to help. I met with him in order to understand the problem from the school’s perspective to better understand the problem and met with the family to understand their perspective and feelings.
There had never been any negotiation with the family and the government didn’t do any negotiation- officials just sided with the school and what I figured was the best approach- that the school forget about the paperwork and try promoting a “win-win” situation by negotiating instead of fighting and trying to win. I asked him to maybe think about how to compensate or compromise for a solution that makes everyone happy. I think my role is to help them realize that there were more options and help to facilitate a process where they create options that are satisfactory to both the family and the school. The principal has agreed to allow me to try and help to facilitate generating some options.
The School Yard
-Male church pastor, C1
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