Everyone pauses, thinking, then a chorus of snaps begins-the group's method of applause, designed, appropriately, in response to complaints from the center's neighbors about noise. The judges award prize Tootsie Rolls. In a good-natured way, the game puts volunteer mediators under pressure and lets them practice dealing with the way people in conflict communicate. Charkoudian's samples of training complaints contain insults, obscenity and shocking imagery. The job of the mediator is to help the people on both sides of a conflict move beyond the expression of anger or rigid statements of position so that they can hear what is really at stake.
Mediation is voluntary, confidential and neutral, and mediators never take sides.
We want to empower people to find the solution within themselves. Occasionally mediations resolve right away because as soon as the parties actually hear what the other person is saying they see the common ground between them. Often it's the first time they've actually sat down together to discuss the problem and the first time they see each other as human beings. She says that about 80 percent of their mediations end in a written or verbal agreement between the parties, but she sees success even in the simple fact that the parties have come together and communicated. Charkoudian founded the program in the fall of 1995 with the help of another graduate student, Nader Kabbani, and the support of Bill Tiefenwerth, director of Hopkins' Office of Volunteer Services who also founded the Safe and Smart Center.