Quotations from lectures that Ibrahim Issa presented:
- “You need to start by creating a “safe space”, providing both physical security and psychological security. The most difficult thing is to create this safe space in an area and a time of war and violence.”
- “To work with traumatized children, you need to give legitimacy to the traumatized behaviour, and at the same time involve the child and ask his commitment”
- “Don’t expect people to love their enemy, but bring them together and create a safe space to connect at the human level”
- “Learning the language of the other is a prerequisite for communication with them”
- “Each side has their own narrative of history, you cannot bring that together. But let’s take the pain from our histories, from both sides, because that is the only common basis from history to start creating a future together”
- “It is personal for me, I just want to be there, in that tough environment – I do this work because I want to be meaningful. This is the situation I have to deal with, and this is where I will work”
- “We need to give people hope and perspective for a better life; it cannot be so that this is what we have to live with for ever more”
- “You have to match your acts to the level of difficulty of the problem”
- “To be a human being is to be active where you are needed and to care about other human beings”