Symp 2007 Workshops

Germany workshop

This was a compilation of displays comprising information on a wide array of topics that foreigners often come across in Germany. A few topics were ones that we, as outsiders had often questioned the Germans and a few others were topics that we would not have thought about at all.

A few interesting ones I liked were about women's emancipation-moms in Germany, the one on popular comics, a beer tasting fest, the games that german kids grow up playing, life of foreigners in Germany and one on the homosexuality trend in germany and how society deals with it. It was put together very well. Many questions were answered an we learnt a lot about Germany, Germans and their culture.The informal casual approach to this workshop was congenial to more learning and I had a great time at the workshop.

Mediation workshop:

A day long workshop on mediation was conducted for all the symposium attendees. Mediation is a very relevant concept and is gaining more importance with the ever shrinking world. We had facilitators who helped us delve into various dimensions that come into the mediation purview, showed us how to look at them, how to approach them and helped us analyze our personal mediation attitudes skills.

We approached the aspects of conflict its acknowledgement, its roots either personal, cultural, generational etc and its characteristics. We did an exercise to evaluate where we stand when a conflict stares us in the face.

We identified the parties in a conflict, the people in a conflict and their mediator. The most important part of the workshop was attributing the mediator characteristics. Mediators should be neutral, objective, good listeners and most importantly should be able to resolve the conflict without aggression and compromise. We went on to identify a 5 stage mediation process which all of us identify with and is very simple.

We did a few case studies as role plays and then analyzed the situations by person and conflict. This was of great help in understanding.

As much as this was a workshop, the intercultural , interdisciplinary aspect coming into it made it a very interesting workshop. A Very relevant concept workshop with a solid carry back home value

JF-SF joint session

Networking is a key in the MF. We are here as a network and our strength is in knowing ourselves and each other well. You never know when you might need the help or guidance of another person. With an intention of bringing SF and JF closer, we had a joint session of the SF-JF. To make this session beneficial, a few SF volunteered to share their expertise with interested JF. Topics such as First Aid, Study abroad programs in Europe, Chile, Singapore and the United States, Applying to graduate school, Filling in applications, and Starting your own company were covered.

Online networking tools workshop.

A workshop on online networking tools was conducted by a team of SF. This team collaborated to provide a simple and easy way of using readily available tools for better communication. The team comprised of Vaishak Belle, Xia Tian, Divya Tyam and Matthias Frenzel took the senior fellows through concepts of networking in terms of blogs, file shares, photo galleries, sharing videos and wikis.

*A few other topics that were touched upon were RSS feeds, what it means and how it helps us.

*Maintaining wiki pages and managing multiple collaborators for the content. The presenters considered the Europe region's pbwiki as an instance.

*The effective ways of linking pictures/videos from other sites to add content as well as a look to our web pages.

This was an interactive workshop which gave the SF an opportunity to explore the drupal options that the MF now has. This was a nice activity that formalized the sharing that happens in the MF. These tools not only help in fostering friendships but also adds more professionalism to our work in the MF.