We came together for two days and facilitated dialogue.Īnd, on the first day, to break down barriers, we did something very unique called Third to First-Person Narrative, where you pair off, and you exchange a personal story on a common issue. Libertarian, Democrat, Republican, Unaffiliated a rich diversity of voices in terms of race, in terms of age- be it graduate, undergraduate, PhD. We had collaboration from college students across the Triangle, from Duke, from UNC, from State, and from NCCU. And the whole basis of Leaders for Political Dialogue is to enable people to have substantive, experiential conversations, not just coffee talk, but where you actually put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and hear another person’s perspective, not necessarily going in to change other’s minds, but to try to understand better what is driving a different point of view. In a world that is so broken, we felt we need to do something here at home, here in Durham, where we live. You know, I have friends that stopped being friends with other people, that shut down their Facebook accounts, that had arguments with family at Thanksgiving dinner. It was truly overwhelming and, when I spoke with my friends on campus, they also felt equally overwhelmed.
And, in the lead-up to the election, during the election, following the election, I was so struck by the tensions, by the emotions that were running across the campus, across the city, across the country. I arrived about three months before the election. Linda Low, Duke Masters in International Development Policy (MIDP) student, on the genesis of the project
0 kommentar(er)
