FEBRUARY 28, 2019
INADR
      Through training and tournaments, students come together to listen, learn, and practice mediation skills. The connections made provide individuals life-long friends with a shared understanding of the value of peaceful reconciliation.
    My First “Mediation” Competition
Dylan John, Executive Committee
In 2011, Dr. Peter Makaya (Middle Georgia State University) had been asked to put together a team of students to participate at an INADR Mock Mediation Tournament. He asked a small group of students, if anyone was available that weekend and interested in participating. Being a freshman in College and new to the United States, I wanted to get involved and immerse myself in as many experiential learning opportunities as possible, so up went my hand as I volunteered to be part of this team. Little did I know the exciting journey ahead and the door that had been opened for me to immerse myself in an environment that taught me valuable and fundamental professional skills.
That weekend we drove up to Gainesville, Georgia as me and the rest of the team learned about an “Opening Statement” in Mediation while we rode in the back of a university van. I recall being extremely nervous about participating in a competition that I knew nothing about. However, it didn’t take long after our arrival on the Brenau campus, attending the training session and meeting faculty/trainers from the mediation community to realize that the focus at this tournament was learning and not merely competing. This was a confusing philosophy to me at the time but, something I was curious about and wanted to explore more.
As we simulated the process of mediation at the fifirst round of the tournament, I began to learn about “individual caucuses” and “joint caucuses”. The dynamics of the room and how it changes/evolves as the mediator utilizes the caucuses as tools to help move the process forward was very amusing to me. I quickly began to
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