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Exploring different endings to the story
SAID ALOUD
Exploring different endings to the story
Aim . To explore the notion of ‘ success ’ and allow the group to construct a suitably realistic ending .
PART II : THE TRAINING
Trainer . We have come to the end of the story of the Butterfly Woman . Has she found her family again ? Will she be able one day to sit beside her beloved river and feel at peace ?
Of course , we don ’ t know . There are many possible outcomes , and we have only explored a few of them .
In every case , including the real cases on which you work , we also have to consider whether the work that we have done as helpers , and the efforts made by survivors , have been a ‘ success ’.
Let us think about ‘ success ’ for a moment . It is a very complicated idea – but important , because we often rely on it to value our work and the efforts we make , and to give us hope . Yet , in the very painful and chaotic conditions in which we operate , ‘ success ’ in its most straightforward sense (“ And the Butterfly Woman lived happily ever after ”) is unlikely to occur . So what do we mean by ‘ success ’? What should we mean when we talk of success ?
Let ’ s spend a few minutes now thinking about this together . What have you used in the past to measure your ‘ success ’? Have you changed the way you think about success in any way after the three days we have spent together here ? What are the key issues for you ?
And of course , the other side of success is ‘ failure ’. We have probably all felt at some point that our work has not succeeded . We might not have helped a survivor as we had hoped . Perhaps a woman with whom we worked was not able to find in herself or in others the resources to recover her dignity and strength . How have you dealt with failure ? How have you felt on such occasions , and have you managed and overcome those feelings ? Has the work we have done together in these three days helped you to think about this issue ?
Discussion . Measuring success . ( 10 minutes .)
DISCUSSION
What do we mean when we talk of success ?
Thank you all . Now we have reached the last moments of the Workshop and I am going to tell you how I believe the story ends . Are you sitting comfortably ? Then I will begin .
The Trainer ends the Butterfly Woman ’ s story in her own words .