It was incredible how the sequencing of the workshop allowed a certain slow dive into my emotions about how I live my live with my gender. I had silenced this topic to appear in my social settings, and now it is a little easier to know when needed how to approach it again.
~ Woman Participant, Egypt
I have never shared my story or secrets with anyone before or to a group like this past days and am still amazed at how bold and courageous I was to do so.
~ GERI Participant, Nairobi, Kenya
This has been a powerful year in the Nile Basin region for GERI, with an in-person workshop in Nairobi, Kenya in February with the Tiriji Foundation, as well as our inaugural in-person workshop in Egypt in collaboration with Nile Journeys.
The program in Nairobi was a moving four days together in collaboration with Tiriji Foundation and Daystar University, and bringing together eighteen women and fifteen men from Kenya, East Africa, the Nile Basin region, and beyond. Many deep themes emerged during the time together — abandonment by parents, absent father figures, and many women’s experience of gender based violence. . . After this level of truth-telling by both genders, the honoring ceremonies and each group’s expression of love, appreciation, and prayer touched the hearts of those receiving.
As one woman reflected after,
Men allowed us into their world of gut-wrenching experiences, the yoke of ‘manhood,’ and impossible expectations society insists they must carry—including self-loathing, humiliation, and utter helplessness of watching their sisters and mothers beaten, molested, and sexually abused.
Women invited the men into our lived experience of unspeakable injustices – abandonment, judgement, rape, sexual abuse, loneliness, longings for belonging, the unmatched heartbreak of not being heard, always feeling as if one was speaking to an endless abyss, a void.
While I immensely appreciated the whole retreat, the last day warmed my heart and healed my pain of many years. The women, honoring the men – called each by name and with song and dance blessed them with a prayer.
The men, honoring the women, invited us to a candlelight dance. The floor was decorated with red bougainvillea petals. Each man committed to honor, guard, and respect every woman. This was the first time that myself and other women had been honored for being ‘women’.
Two men,
• apologized for all injustices that men had unleashed on me, and all women;
• asked me to be the guardian and custodian of his promise to protect women.
One bore the name of my brother, the other the name of my son.
This wiped my heart clean of previous wrongs my brother and son had done to me. I realized it’s my responsibility to influence my brother and son on the importance of respect for oneself and humanity.
In Egypt, GERI collaborated with Nile Journeys and the Tiriji Foundation to first convene a half-day introductory process in Cairo, followed by a full three-day workshop in Aswan in April. This being GERI’s first introduction in Egypt, the team was especially sensitive and worked closely with the Nile Journeys team in the implementation of the program. The result was a profoundly moving three days where both the women and men in the group rose nobly to the challenge of showing up in their authenticity, vulnerability, truth of their lives and gender experiences.
When it came time for the Truth Forum process, the men were invited by the women to enter into the circle and share first — an invitation which they boldly accepted and entered into fully, despite the challenges and vulnerabilities of doing so in front of the women first. The men’s deep and authentic sharing touched the women deeply, as one women reflected afterwards, “I am in awe. I had heard from my girlfriends that men do cry. . . But I had never seen it. . .“
This unguarding and opening of the heart in both group’s sharing then blossomed so beautifully into the ceremonies of appreciation and honoring of the other.
Deep thanks to Nile Journeys and Mohamed El Mongy for the invitation and to the Tiriji Foundation for the collaboration in this workshop.