{ "id": 4354, "date": "2018-12-06T09:28:17", "date_gmt": "2018-12-06T08:28:17", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/?p=4354" }, "modified": "2018-12-06T09:28:17", "modified_gmt": "2018-12-06T08:28:17", "slug": "how-do-you-share-an-orange-innovative-problem-solving-workshop-empowers-refugee-youth-brussels-express", "status": "publish", "type": "post", "link": "https:\/\/sboverseas.org\/en\/how-do-you-share-an-orange-innovative-problem-solving-workshop-empowers-refugee-youth-brussels-express\/", "title": { "rendered": "How do you share an orange? \u2013 Innovative problem-solving workshop empowers refugee youth | Brussels Express" }, "content": { "rendered": "

First published in Brussels Express<\/a> on 5 December. Written by Niki Papadogiannakis.<\/em><\/p>\n

How do you share an orange?<\/p>\n

On first instinct you might think, \u201ccut it in half, so it\u2019s even.\u201d But is that the best answer?<\/p>\n

This dilemma was posed to the youth at the Red Cross refugee accommodation centre in Uccle recently, where one team of participants was told to pretend to be thirsty and want the juice from the orange. The second group were to make a cake with the zest from the orange peel. The two groups came together and had to negotiate over one orange, without previously knowing why the other group wants it too\u2014so how do you figure out who gets what?<\/p>\n

This simulation played out with the youth and volunteers at SB Espoir during a workshop on negotiation skills  led by Avi Goldstein from Pathways Institute for Negotiation Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At first I was a bit skeptical about how useful negotiation skills are to a teenager\u2014trying to learn about negotiation and game theory as a university student is hard enough! But as Avi led us through the activities, it became clear:<\/p>\n

\u201cNegotiation is part of our everyday life,\u201d explains Marco Cagnolati, project coordinator for SB OverSeas. \u201cWe are constantly negotiating, if it\u2019s to convince our friends to come play football or convince our boss to give us a raise. The activities of the day were on learning about how negotiations and communicating with others impact the outcomes of everyday situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But so then how do you negotiate an orange?<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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One of the youth asked for a knife, and peeled the orange, keeping the peel for his group to make the cake and gave the rest of the orange to the other group to make juice.<\/p>\n

But he only did this after asking \u201cwhy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he knew what his group needed and didn\u2019t need and found the perfect way to share. In that moment, the participants learned that it\u2019s more efficient to communicate needs and wants, rather than making assumptions.<\/p>\n

Asking \u201cwhy\u201d was the key to the \u201carm\u201d game as well, where the winner was the person that got the other person\u2019s hand to touch the table the most times. Rather than just making it a competition of strength to see who wins, the participants learned that it\u2019s sometimes more efficient to decide to play it in a way where both win the most. So instead of just wrestling\u2013 as the game is typically played\u2013 the two players decided to just take turns, and so both won more times.<\/p>\n

These kinds of problem-solving activities are the backbone of Pathway\u2019s mission, which uses Harvard Negotiation Project to empower young people to learn how to \u201cnegotiate creatively, constructively and fairly.\u201d SB OverSeas is among the many organisations that Pathways partners with to use their experiential approach of teaching these essential skills to young people in Europe and around the world.<\/p>\n

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