Training leader/manager for Habitat
Lawyer & writer of romance novels
25. Lina Maria Obando (Marquez), MA ’00
26. Patricia “Paddy” Patton, MA ’00
San Jose, Costa Rica
“John Paul Lederach’s elicitive approach to learning has stayed with me through the years,” says Lina Maria Obando, who is Habitat for Humanity’s organizational learning manager for Latin America and the Caribbean. The “elicitive approach” refers to a participatory educational process often used at CJP. It deviates from the traditional teacher-student role, whereby the teacher is viewed as the expert, filled with knowledge to be poured into the empty-vessel student. In an elicitive classroom, the teacher positions herself or himself as a facilitator, enabling everyone to tap into each other’s experiences and knowledge. The students are active in shaping the lessons. Lina says she is “elicitive” in the way she works with others, builds networks, determines needs, helps people to identify the resources they have, and conducts trainings. She also has never forgotten Howard Zehr’s way of modeling what he taught about respecting people. “You can ask questions in a way that empowers people, as Howard does, or that dis-empowers them. I try to give people the opportunity to have a voice.” In October 2010, Lina coordinated a large Habitat for Humanity conference involving about 60 people from 14 Latin American countries, including the president of each national unit of Habitat. Lina has been able to work at her highly responsible job, involving much travel, because she and her husband Ruben have agreed to share child rearing. Sometimes Lina works from home, and other times Ruben does. “We didn’t want to sacrifice our [two] children to our jobs,” says Lina. “It hasn’t been easy though. We had to review our traditional gender roles. “We had to explore the ‘new masculinity’ as a family: What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman too? We didn’t get healthy help from the church. We had to find a special counselor who had lots of experience working in ‘new masculinity.’” Lina wonders why the peacebuilding field doesn’t pay more attention to the “important topic of masculinity and peacebuilding” and to “restorative relationships” within the family.
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peacebuilder fall/winter 2010-2011
Hagerstown, Maryland
“What led me to enroll in the conflict transformation program was the conviction that I needed to put myself where I would be around people with a constructive approach to conflict and a determination to deal with it honorably,” writes Patricia Patton, an attorney who (then and now) represents children in cases of abuse or neglect in Washington County, Maryland. “I was headed for burnout. My problem-solving tricks were getting stale and my spirit was weary. And, yes, the program recharged my professional and spiritual batteries (without ever waxing religious), and gave me some very useful tools for coping with the challenges of my profession – not just the challenges inherent in dealing with specific conflicts, but the challenges of dealing with a steady diet of conflict. “Then too, I was reminded that my little child abuse and neglect bailiwick was not genocide, which some of my classmates had coped with first-hand and were prepared to take on upon graduation. In other words, I got refocused on my blessings. This is a focus worth preserving.” In the past five years, Paddy has taken her verbal skills into a completely new arena: writing romance novels. “What does this have to do with an open society, you ask? To the extent that romance novels focus on empowering women, and on individual choice and self-expression often against societal odds, they are revolutionary literature.” She adds: “For my master’s project, I was allowed to write a romance novel that analyzed the effectiveness of the legal system as a conflict management system. That manuscript has been reworked over time, and is now under consideration with a number of publishers. The working title is Legally Tender. If that book makes it into print, I will dedicate it to the good folk at CJP.” [Editor: Gee, thanks! About those royalties, we always need more scholarship funds. Paddy joked back: WILL forward some royalties upon making the bestseller lists.] Paddy’s first published book, written under the penname Grace Burrowes, is scheduled to be sold on the internet and in bookstores on December 7, 2010. It is a historical novel set in England, titled The Heir.