How do we build trust inside a group, and what do we need to keep it? With this question, the Social Development Committee opened a series of meetings with a new scouts group. In the first meeting, movement and imagination exercises opened a space for spontaneity and experiment. Through trust games that engage the senses, participants moved into a discussion of what builds trust in each one's eyes, what they need to feel at ease in the group, and the boundaries whose crossing breaks that trust.
In the second meeting, the focus turned to dealing with difference within the group. Through acting and role play, participants worked through situations of exclusion: how it can appear inside a group, and what helps create a space where everyone feels they have a place and a voice.
The third meeting centred on the language of feelings and on communication among the members of the group. Using imagination and role play, participants tried out expressing different feelings, and thought about the way we communicate with others, and how understanding our own feelings and the feelings of those around us shapes our everyday relationships.
The meetings build step by step: from building trust and learning the group's boundaries, to dealing with difference, and then to developing a shared language that helps us express ourselves, listen and communicate.
These meetings are part of the Social Development Committee's work with young women and men, opening spaces for expression, dialogue and reflection on their relationship with themselves and with their surroundings. Listening to one another, respecting our boundaries and making room for every voice are the foundations of participation and collective work, inside the group and in the wider community.
