Joel Skapinker is on our teaching team in Grenada this week. He, along with Riverdale mediator Elizabeth Hyde and mediate393 mediators Nicole Stewart-Kamanga and Liz Waisberg are delivering training to 35 community leaders as part of the IMPACT Justice Project. See our previous blog for more information about this exciting project.
Our first day of teaching mediation in Grenada was quite an experience. I was impressed with the sophistication of the participants who are very keen on learning as much as possible. Many of the attendees are police officers and community leaders who have experience in conflict resolution but with limited or no formal training. They had acted using common sense; this group has a strong instinct for doing things correctly without really appreciating why they were doing them. It was very satisfying to see them absorbing the information we taught and asking questions that demonstrated their readiness to integrate the taught theory into practice and to become well-trained mediators.
I have learned much from the attendees already. Great exchanges are taking place in the small groups we coach. For example: the island of Grenada was named after Grenada in Spain by Columbus who “discovered” the island; the indigenous population were largely killed by the Spanish, and the survivors assimilated into the general population of Africans brought here as slaves; the French took over from the Spanish in a war and that the French lost the island (twice) to the British; there was a revolution in the 1980s which brought in Cuban and Soviet communists to help create socialism; Ronald Reagan, in one of his few disagreements with Margaret Thatcher, invaded Grenada in 1983 on the pretext of rescuing US students “stranded” in Grenada; and the minimum wage in Grenada is $2.50 (CDN) per hour.
I have always known that travel is educational but to travel specifically in order to teach & learn is educational on steroids. To have the opportunity to teach this particular group is even better. Its an honour to have been chosen to accompany Elizabeth, Nicole & Liz.
Joel Skapinker
(B.A., LL.B., LL.M., Acc. FM)
Joel has many years of experience practicing family law, currently with Skapinker & Shapiro.
