A group photo of the Teachers’ Dialogue participantsA second teachers’ dialogue was held on Friday, May 29 in Lagos, Nigeria at the IofC country secretariat. The programme, specifically designed for teachers by MRA-IofC Nigeria, brought together 40 teachers to participate in a workshop on ‘integrity and trust building’ in a multi-faith setting.  It was facilitated by Barrister Abiodun Owoseni and Obas Ukoko, both active members of Initiatives of Change.

The 5-hour long workshop kicked off with Mr Owoseni taking the group through a slide presentation on the history and ideas of MRA-IofC and how relevant the values of absolute purity, honesty, unselfishness and love are in our society today, especially in the lives of teachers – the custodians of tomorrow’s leaders. The idea of listening to one’s inner voice for connection, correction and direction was also emphasized by Owoseni.

Following a mid morning break, Obas Ukoko paired up participants who before coming for the workshop were total strangers. A few minutes afterwards, participants were randomly asked to introduce their new ‘friends’ to the bigger group. One of the objectives of the Teachers’ dialogue is to encourage the networking of teachers of similar values which will hopefully create a ripple effect of change in schools. The familiarization exercise seemed to have initiated the networking process as new friendships were quickly struck.

One of the high points of the workshop came when Obas, in demonstrating the subject of ‘trust building’, led the group through the ‘blindfold’ exercise. Participants were split into 2 groups. A group was blindfolded (followers) while the other group (leaders) was asked to ‘lead’ the ‘followers’ out of the meeting room, down a flight of stairs, through narrow passages and back to the meeting room. Throughout the exercise, each ‘leader’ was asked to remain mute whilst leading the 'follower’. Once in the meeting room again, the ‘followers’ took off their blindfolds to discover who had been leading them, leading to lots of surprises! Thereafter, we debriefed the exercise to an excited group of participants who were obviously participating in such an exercise for the first time. Amongst the interesting comments and observations made, a teacher shared his real life experience in 1990 when he volunteered to be responsible for taking a blind friend around. He said he applied the same technique that was used in this exercise and it worked for both him and his follower. He also noted that as a result of his genuine care and concern for his blind friend, trust was built and today friendship is still waxing strong. Another teacher, in describing the exercise, had this to say: “I now appreciate what blind people in society go through. While been led, I didn’t trust my leader enough to lead me. I felt tempted to remove my blindfold to see for myself where I was going”.

The group went out for lunch, having been given 3 questions to ponder over. One of them was, “Have you ever been faced with a situation when your integrity was tested? If yes, how did you respond?” As the group chewed over lunch and the questions in small groups, one couldn’t help but notice the synergy at work in the groups. Returning to the secretariat for the last phase of the workshop, Mrs Amina Dikedi-Ajakaiye, who had over 25 years working experience with Initiatives of Change (IofC), addressed the group briefly on her vision for a better Nigeria and Africa in general. Drawing from her world-wide travel experience with IofC, she stated “I’m proud to be an African everywhere I go”.

Afterwards each group came up to give a 3 minute presentation on the questions discussed in their respective groups. Mr Owoseni summarized the highlights of the workshop and formally brought the workshop to a close with a group photo session. In reiterating the views of some of the participants, it is hoped that the Teachers’ Dialogue initiative, though new, will be a regular programme through which moral values and ethics can be infused into the school system.

Obas Ukoko