Unity in diversity is a complex task, for it requires inter-dependency. And inter-dependency cannot take place if I am unwilling to let go, if I cannot trust another partner, if I refuse to be part of something greater than myself.

That is our task. To generate collective power by the force of inter-dependency, bringing to the circle all of my skills, and celebrating the diversity of my circle.

A few questions can guide us into this journey.

The first one is:

"How will our partnership look if we were at our best?"

Let us identify our optimal condition.

Then, we can identify the barriers that are keeping us from reaching our optimum performance.

The model that I recommend is the one of Razalogia, a model developed by the Farmworkers movement in California during the sixties, when the main task was to unite people of diverse cultural and educational backgrounds.

This model consists of using 4 indicators for assessing barriers and identifying resources to overcome them. Here they are:

Knowledge

(Experience)

Trust Power

Experience, the common school among us, is the element that can bring us all together.

What is my experience of work? Are decisions taken based on experience? Do we have the power to make the changes based on our best knowledge? What are we doing to built knowledge, trust, and power for our partnership?How is our growing experience being transformed into a more effective program? How is the experience of our clients being addressed by our partnership? What are we doing to take care of each other?

The use of our experience to formulate questions will lead us to identify barriers. We begin to trust each other, to open up. Now, our challenge is how to break through those barriers. If our participants are the ones to identify barriers, our first step is to encourage them to come up with solutions. Our "Experience" model, can serve as a starting point for the formulation of solutions that contemplate how knowledge, trust, and power are going to be improved by these actions.

The ancient Chinese model of Ying and Yang provides us with healthy suggestions as to how to deal with barriers. According to this model, each problem has within itself the seed of its solution. Our task is to identify the seed, and to nurture it, that is, to bring forth solutions in the mists of problems. And by working with them, we also bring forth our best self. The Chinese character for "Problem" also means "opportunity." That is what a problem can be, if we choose to approach it in such a way.

Each culture has developed its own resources as to how problems need not to be the end of our enthusiasm or hope. We find their resiliency in traditions, in stories and sayings, in rituals and ceremonies, in words and images. We are to bring them to work with us, for we are going to need them.

A Russian story tells us that problems are magic mirrors. They reveal who we are. This story tells us about a young man who inherited a great kingdom. During his whole life he never had to make an effort for anything. He also never had to face the magic mirror, a problem that required from him skill and effort. One day, the mirror appeared in the form of a drought. The king saw his kingdom gradually reduced to ruins, and all he did was to curse his fortune. Not far from there, lived another man. This one had been haunted by the magic mirror of problems numerous times. He had been born into the most abject poverty, and ever since he was a little boy he had to struggle to find a way to survive. He worked the land, met the magic mirror a thousand times, and every time he had managed to come up with a solution. This man grew up with only one certainly: That he could face any adversity. As time went by, his capacity as a problem solver grew, and his reputation spread through out the kingdom. People from all walks in life will ask him for his advise. When the drought came, the rest of the people naturally gravitated towards him. He organized the people, prepared them to go through this period, and taught them to rely on each other. And they endured the drought. As the first drops of rain fell from the sky, putting an end to the drought, the people realized that now they were stronger than ever before. They had discovered the strengths and skills of each other. They were together. The people decided to celebrate, and asked the young man to sit in a place of honor. The young man declined stating that such an honorable place was reserved for a king. But the king asked him to take such a place "we all have learned" the king said, "that a problem-solver is the greatest resource of our kingdom."

Problem-solving principles have worked in the most oppressive circumstances, even in prisons and concentration camps. The best example of this principle that comes to mind, is the experience of Victor Frankl in a concentration camp during World War II. Victor Frankl, a psychologist, was confronted with the biggest challenge any psychologist can face. How to keep hope alive in a hopeless situation. This is what Frankl had to say to his comrades:

"Then I spoke of the many opportunities of giving life a meaning. I told my comrades (who lay motionless, although occasionally a sigh could be heard) that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. I asked the poor creatures who listened to me attentively in the darkness of the hut to face up to the seriousness of our position. They must not lose hope but should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning. I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours -a friend, a wife, somebody alive or death, or a God- and would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly -not miserably- knowing how to die.

And Finally I spoke of our sacrifice, which had meaning in every case. It was in the nature of this sacrifice that it should appear to be pointless in the normal world, the world of material success. But in reality our sacrifice did have meaning.

The purpose of my words was to find a full meaning in our life, then and there, in that hut and in that practically hopeless situation. I saw that my efforts had been successful. When the electric bulb flared up again, I saw the miserable figures of my friend limping toward me to thank me with tears in their eyes. But I have to confess here that only too rarely had I the inner strength to make contact with my companions in suffering and that I must have missed many opportunities for doing so."