Prior to joining Collectiva Shamila, Batool was a member of Collectiva Souriyat, a group of Syrian women dedicated to peacebuilding and supported by Sharq.org.
~
Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the word Collectiva is the progress of taking small steps. This is how it all began in Collectiva Souriyat. It was as simple as that. A number of women from all over Syria would meet online every Wednesday night for one hour. No rules or boundaries were set. We were free to talk about anything we wanted and initiate any projects we wished. But as much as that made us excited, being totally free to talk about anything we wanted, we also soon began to see the challenges and limitations posed by this methodology.
A significant issue in a divided country like Syria is working with people that you do not know since before. Many of us Syrians today live in fear and, unfortunately, we fear each other. Therefore, many of the women remained silent and reluctant to share views and opinions during our meetings. This became a major obstacle, especially since online meetings do not provide room for enhancing trust among participants in my view.
In Collectiva Souriyat, we realized that meeting in person on the ground would be key to move projects forward but due to the conflict-related mobility issues we face in Syria this was not possible.
Another challenge posed by the methodology of loosely set meeting agendas is the feeling of becoming lost after a while. In companies and organizations, employees know what their role and responsibilities entail while in this unstructured methodology, there are no clear boundaries in regards to duties and the amount of work that is expected to be carried out by the participants. After some time of confusion, things got better when we started working on projects together in Collectiva Souriyat. After all, there is no better way to get to know people and learn how to work with them than to actually carry out work together as a group.
It is amazing how we participants in Collectiva Shamila benefited from the experience in Collectiva Souriyat. In Collectiva Shamila, there have been women and men from different Arab countries and we have all worked together on set projects.
However, there is no doubt that progress and completion of one´s work also are linked to both personal and outside factors. At times, communications are down in Syria and the electricity goes out.
Looking back at my experience in taking part in both Collectiva Souriyat and Collectiva Shamila, I felt that these groups created spaces for me to learn and grow. There is no doubt that it is a unique and important experience to be able to meet and work with people, although online, who may differ greatly from yourself which was the case in these projects. Yet, you soon realize that you all share the same values and the same yearning for pushing society forward.
