Mediation Northern Ireland

Fostering Dialogue Across Divides Summer School Begins

Mediation Northern Ireland is delighted to have Maureen Sheehey open the Fostering Dialogue Summer School.

Maureen Sheehey is well known for compiling both Partners Companion to Training for Transformation and Partners Intercultural Companion to Training for Transformation in 1981.  These books were considered seminal texts for the practice of community development and offered much needed insight to elicitive rather than prescriptive decision making.

Maureen’s work as both a writer and a trainer has supported community workers to combine discovery, learning and action at the Personal, Interpersonal and Societal dimensions of life. 

Maureen is both a follower and a leader in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the work of Paulo Freire.  “Once I caught the bug I knew there would be no cure.  I would live this work forever”.  With quotes from Freire like “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”  it is easy to understand why his work and Maureen’s work will never date. 

Exploring Max-Neef with Maureen Sheehey is taking place at Riddel Hall, Stranmillis from 10 - 2pm on Wednesday, June 19th. 

The Fostering Dialogue Summer School is part of a larger dialogue programme supported by Peace III through Belfast City Councils Good Relations Unit.