Applying Palms Skills in Australia

Applying Palms Skills in Australia

By Soraya Kassim, Palms Executive Director

It was my great pleasure to facilitate Palms’ 107th Orientation Course at the beginning of this month, to prepare our next batch of volunteers who are set to serve in Timor Leste (Richard, Ushi, Derek, Wendy) and in The Philippines (Annie).  They were a very skilled and discerning cohort, and so I am pleased that the feedback we received from them to our new extended blended course format was excellent, and certainly encouraging of the new directions we are taking on this training.

Many of the new exercises I introduced into the course call on participants to reflect on past experiences of interculturality and cultural humility, which have been central to Palms’ approach and formation from the beginning.  They also invite participants to consider how they might apply strengths-based skills and an appreciation of the implications of colonisation, not only overseas, but in their lives in Australia.  As we did this, I wondered myself how these skills are being applied now by our returnees, and whether and how we might support each other to do this difficult work of applying deep learning in our daily lives in Australia. 

To this end, I am inviting contributions from you all, which will parallel ‘Stories from the Field’ – that is, Stories from the Field in which We Live Now.  I’m sure someone will come up with a catchier title than that – but the initiative is I hope clear.  How might we inspire and animate each other in our continuing efforts to build on what is often transformational learning gained during a placement?  This an important element of the Palms mission that can often be overlooked and which remains a core part of our impact on the world. 

So I open the floor to you.  Contributions may be humble or huge.  They are of equal value, as every giant step in humanity started with small changes and built on (usually unacknowledged) contributions from many before. 

Some ideas to start the process might be your experiences of:

  • Conversations in your parish or workplace around immigration or the aftermath of the Voice Referendum.  How are you bridging differences of views?  What listening qualities do you bring to hearing views which you might find jarring or challenging?  How are you setting markers of your own principles in a way that invites discussion and does not simply reinforce ‘tribal divides’?
  • Navigating the time honoured passage of rebellion in teenage children.  How have you built on the core values you share in the family to weather the ravages of social media and influencers who rail against the ‘woke’ agenda to which you may well subscribe?
  • How do you tame the relentless constraints on our ‘Western’ (capitalist, often consumerist and competitive, materially aspirational) lives in order to foster genuine relationships with neighbours or newcomers to your community?

In all cases, the questions are put without judgement.  We all walk in different speeds and in different ways.  What I am certain of though, is that as different as we are, there will always be points of intersection and analogy in experience.  And so in telling stories, we can inspire each other. 

Please send contributions to palms@palms.org.au with subject line: ‘Stories from Oz’. 

I look forward to hearing them.