By Kojo Almasi

I’m at my desk in the office, eyes squinting against the blue light of my dual-monitor setup when the phone rings.

I freeze mid-type and pick up the receiver.

Clear my throat.

“Osgoode Mediation Clinic, Kojo speaking, how can I help you today?”

Then it begins.

Then they hang up and we try to contact the other party and the process begins.

What was jarring to me was the need to follow up. You would think that someone facing an issue so large, so draining and taxing on their well-being that they would call us in the first place would take every step to get it resolved, right? Answer all the emails, provide all the details, do all the legwork.

Well, like the conflicts themselves, it’s not that simple.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the summer is that just as the conflicts we have are complicated, so is our reaction to them. And so, you can’t get to jaded when someone doesn’t respond as fast as you would like. You learn that just because someone doesn’t follow up doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away or is finished. On the contrary, things may be getting worse.

And so, you have no choice but to keep pressing and pressing until, hopefully, the mediation can take place and the conflict can get resolved. If it doesn’t happen, at least you tried, but you must keep trying.

There are five students staffing the Clinic this summer – three returning, students who were in the Clinic last year, and two incoming students, who will be participating this year.

I’m one of the incoming students.

If I could explain the role of a summer student at the Clinic it would be divided into two roles: situational and preparational – situational in dealing with things that are happening now (i.e. mediations, workshops), and preparational in getting things ready for the year ahead (i.e. setting things up for next year’s student program).

On the situational side, one of my highlights this summer was co-working on a project with one of the returning students at the Clinic, Michael. Proposed by Clinic co-director J.P. Bevilacqua, stylized as a “Roundtable in a Box,” the goal of it will be to provide civil society organizations, such as religious organizations, charities, and others specializing in conflict resolution, the tools to come up with better approaches by interacting and sharing ideas.

I also enjoyed doing the training workshops. Training sessions are held in front of student leaders of groups ranging in size from 10-20, and they are opportunities for us at the Clinic to engage with the York campus at-large, training others on how to effectively deal with conflicts that may arise among themselves or the people they lead. By the time this blog gets posted, I will have done my second. Having already done one and witnessing the feedback firsthand, I wish that everyone could have this training. If we could all learn how to resolve our conflicts by ourselves – even the most basic steps – it would be better for all of us. To have a productive and positive means of addressing our most jarring conflicts, without the need to resort to extremes, is what mediation is all about.

Right now, less than a kilometre northwest from the Clinic, grounds crews are busy preparing the surface inside of the Stadium Court at the Aviva Centre for tonight’s match. Featuring two of the most prolific Canadian tennis players in recent history – Genie Bouchard and Bianca Andreescu – it is a contest that promises to be thrilling and entertaining, a tense, timely plebiscite on the past and future of women’s tennis in Canada.

Which gets me thinking, if there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer,  it is how much mediation is like tennis: two sides on opposite ends of a dispute, both fighting with all their will to convince the other person that they alone are right, that their feelings alone matter more, and that the other person is in the wrong. But in a way by agreeing to do a mediation, both parties also simultaneously entertain the possibility, that perhaps, just possibly, the other person may have a valuable point. It is only in the continual back and forth, under a fair set of rules, and with a mediator with an open mind facilitating the right environment, that, hopefully, an equitable and fair solution can be reached. However, whereas only one player will win tonight’s match, mediation is about reaching a solution where both sides win.

That is why places like the Osgoode Mediation Clinic matter – community-focused and accessible, they provide a fair playing ground for people, particularly those who are vulnerable, to resolve their conflicts in a positive and inexpensive manner, and, in the process, better their lives and that of those around them.

As an incoming student, who will get to conduct my own meditations soon, I look forward to what the next eight months will bring.