Education, Experience, Expectations

Today was a day full of information, introductions, and connections. The morning spent in the conference room at the Sheraton hotel was a fury of activity as we learned about what to expect from the journey and learn about each other.

The morning began over bagels and creme cheese where they highlighted Who We Will Meet, what the Canadian Centre for Diversity is, and the Role of the Facilitator. After the introduction to the program we broke into our first set of many groups for the morning, the first topic of discussion was that of Community Commitments. These commitments are ones that we will try to consciously follow throughout the trip to help us respect one another, as well as, each others ideas and opinions.

Transitioning to our next group our topic of discussion was "Who Are You," where we were asked (1)Name, (2)What people who know you know about you, and (3)What people who really know you know about you. This activity gave us all an opportunity to open up to each other a level that we were comfortable with.

World Cafe was the next task at hand where again we rotated through different groups, this time revisiting the topis of the Webinar discussions over the past two months. The Paradigm, Antesemitism, Victims of the Holocaust, and finally the MRH Experience. Talking about the MRH experience the key points highlighted by many were the transformation that will likely occur as a result of the journey and the collective aspect of the trip (involved students representing the future generation). The cominalities that we share are the desire to learn, the aspect of prevention, and the reality we face today. Following up the World Cafe the facilitators reenforced the acknowledgment of the differences of each group affected and the term Jew became negative when everything bad became associated with it.

Our break for lunch came and went and we spent the remainder of the afternoon meeting Paul, the social worker traveling with us and then coming together in our Core Learning Group (CLG). In our CLG we spent time refreshing on house keeping items and then getting to know what was on each other's mind through three key questions. (1) One thing you can't stop thinking about?, (2) One thing you know for sure about the Holocuast; one thing you are unsure about, (3) The heart of the matter?

We are now sitting at the airport waiting to get on our fight and I can honestly say that this group of people is an amazing group of individuals and I am really grateful to be apart of it.