Guest post by Niki Papadogiannakis

Excerpted from the original article at Brussels Express

At first I was a bit skeptical about how useful negotiation skills are to a teenager—trying to learn about negotiation and game theory as a university student is hard enough! But as Avi led us through the activities, it became clear:

“Negotiation is part of our everyday life,” explains Marco Cagnolati, project coordinator for SB OverSeas. “We are constantly negotiating, if it’s to convince our friends to come play football or convince our boss to give us a raise. The activities of the day were on learning about how negotiations and communicating with others impact the outcomes of everyday situations.”

These kinds of problem-solving activities are the backbone of Pathway’s mission, which uses methodology developed by Harvard Negotiation Project to empower young people to learn how to “negotiate creatively, constructively and fairly.” SB OverSeas is among the many organisations that PATHWAYS partners with to use their experiential approach of teaching these essential skills to young people in Europe and around the world.

Particularly for refugee youth, when many without realizing it have spent a lot of time negotiating their life and their future, and will have to continue doing so, to break through barriers of discrimination—these problem-solving skills are even more vital to their lives.

Who knows, maybe one day one of the youth who participated in this activity will be the next great international negotiator!