Initial training sessions (February to May 2010)

The first three sessions of the training took place over the period February to May 2010 with 25 participants in attendance (9 hour course ), the latter having been chosen by Professor André Masiala ma Solo and the Ministry of Education. They hold high-level posts in various domains (formal and non-formal education, justice, child protection, church, and so on). They are all seeking ways to help children, families and people in civil society to assimilate the suffering and inequality in order to achieve peace in their country. (See Boxs 2 and 3 for the stages and main components of the training sessions) 

From the outset in the first session, Professor Masiala and the participants worked with strong motivation, expressing their desire for knowledge and urgent nature of the many needs of their country. They also asked Martine Libertino for assis-tance - she has already designed pilot projects matching the DRC's specific issues - in following up and putting into practice the knowledge acquired over the years to come.

Objectives

  • To bring the participants to knowledge of their strengths and their emotional programming, plus techniques for working on a day-to-day basis to achieve peace, the deprogramming of all forms of suffering and anger from their subconscious and to understand and accept their place in society with confidence and determination.
  • To lead them to an understanding of the attitudes and actions of those around them in their families, communities, places of work, and elsewhere, in order to enable them to find peace and greater knowledge of their abilities and difficulties by teaching them working methods they themselves have tried and tested.
  • To enable them to learn and to teach the way in which a balance can be found between the demands of culture and the demands of the development of their society.
  • To enable them to understand the causal link between the emotional programming of individuals and their country's collective unconscious. We studied the foundations of the Congo's collective unconscious and identified its emotional causes and its symptoms

The students are working on those causes and are beginning to teach in their own areas of competence in their respective communities (street children, seminars, lectures, work days for men and women, mediation for couples, etc.).

Every subject was addressed: faith and religion, racism, the education of children, adults and teachers, justice and governance in a country, the role of men (as sons, husbands, fathers and human beings), and that of women, in all areas related to sexuality, work and philosophy. (See Box 3 for the main components of the training conducted in the RDC in Kinshasa)

The students now know that peace in a country depends on the inner peace, happiness and dignity of each individual making up that country.

They also know that their freewill, their self-confidence, their rigour, their determination, as well as their ability to understand that we must always trust in the potential of others for honesty. They are therefore learned to detach themselves from conventions and preconceived ideas.

Their motivation enables them to put their training into practice and harvest the fruits which they then share with the group at the first overview session on the first morning of each session of the further training course.

During these sessions the trainees worked on a set of themes and each participant put into practice in their respective fields of competencies (See Box 4 for the knowledge they have acquired).

Priorities defined at the end of the initial training session

  • Work days for men/women - Days for couples.
  • Seminars and lectures on defined topics (e.g. anger, force, individuality, the exercise of power, rejection, communication).
  • Family mediation, the school for the philosophical awakening of children and adolescents aged 6 to 21.
  • Classes for children and adults (including introductions to art).
  • Work days with adults.
  • Further training - lectures and seminars on topics on justice.
  • For street children: school for the philosophical awakening of children, parental education, and follow-up on new families.
  • Corporate restructuring.
  • Training for teachers, themed days with public servants.

Potential projects suggested by individual students were passed on to me at the end of the initial training for further study on my return to Switzerland.