During my first week at Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), my supervisor told me that I would be drafting a “restorative justice” section for the Schools Girls Deserve Toolkit. I eagerly nodded as if I knew what that was, and quickly turned to the internet.

“Restorative justice: is a theory of justice that can be employed both re-actively, in response to conflict and/or crime, and proactively to strengthen community by fostering communication and empathy.  Restorative Justice invites everyone impacted by a conflict and/or crime to develop a shared understanding of both the root causes and the effects. Restorative Justice seeks to address the needs of those who have been harmed, while encouraging those who have caused harm to take responsibility.”

At GGE, we underwent a nearly whole-day restorative justice training. It was definitely important that I practice before I preach. We sat in a circle and had a talking piece. We shared stories of our backgrounds, our values, and our struggles. We talked about what we needed in the office in order to be our best selves, and what people needed to do to allow that to happen. We agreed upon an established a list of shared values that we would guide ourselves with in the office. We broke into smaller groups and shared deeply personal stories through questions. In order to practice true listening, the stories would be followed up by rounds of questions from others that we didn’t answer. The whole day was an incredibly meaningful experience. I better understood my colleagues, knew how I would bring myself into the community, and felt a deep sense of calm and unity.

Last week, we held a restorative justice healing circle at the Moxie reflection dinner in order to address some existing tensions in the group. And boy, was there some tension. One of my roommate and I had been struggling for the last week and weren’t really speaking. Conflict over how to share the space paired with a lack of communication had turned into cold silence between the two of us. This was ridiculous considering we both sincerely like and respect each other. The circle was so necessary for me, but I did not want to admit that. I have a lot of pride and I wasn’t about to let go of it. In a leap of faith, I chose to talk about everything in the circle, and so did my roommate. We discussed the impacts of our actions, how they made us feel, and established rules and values moving forward. Now, a week later, we couldn’t get along any better and we get to be the friends we truly are again. I felt this was a true testament to the impact of restorative justice.

Restorative justice has truly proven itself this summer, and has me thinking about what a restorative world would look like. It would look like reparations and problem solving, rather than punishment and isolation for crime. Like therapy and healing circles rather than suspensions and expulsions. Like agreed upon community values rather than black and white imposed rules. Like communication and growth, rather than fighting and tension. I wondering how I can start to make my world look more like this.

I’m going to start by maintaining the mindset that most people come from a place of good intention, and very different stories. This is a good baseline to have for when conflicts arise. I’m thinking of the rowing team, specifically and how we could benefit from restorative justice practices. We have tried to have (non-restorative) circles to address conflict, but they blew up and actually got worse. I want to hold a circle at the beginning of the year to share what values we hold most important, who we are at our best selves and rowers, and what we need from others to be that, develop shared values, and a plan of action for conflict resolution. I think bringing restorative justice to rowing, a huge part of my life, is a great step towards making the world around me more restorative.