Successful mediation brings a great sense of accomplishment to both the disputants and the mediator. Two parties who were previously close to fighting now agree on a nonviolent way to settle their problems. Even an ultimately unsuccessful mediation may create some sense of accomplishment if the process allowed participants to better understand one another’s perspective and what is really important to them. Mediating conflicts makes your school, neighborhood, and community less violent while helping people take responsibility for their actions.

Mediation will also make the people involved with the process—mediators, other volunteers, disputants—better able to resolve conflicts in their lives peacefully. Conflicts arise every day at school, in the workplace, in the community, and at home. Seeing another person as a disputant in a mediation and considering his or her interests and needs makes it easier to see that person as another human being with perceptions that may differ from yours. With that understanding, it’s easier for people to find common ground.

Youth in Action Bulletin

March 2000     Number 15