Part 1 – For the first part one person chooses to be the leader while the other one is the follower. The follower needs to be the exact mirror image of the leader. The leader can move in any way and the follower must follow them exactly. Allow participants to do this for about 5-8 minutes.

Reflection:

• How did it feel to be the leader? How did it feel to be the follower?

Part 2 – For the second part, ask participants to work together and collaborate in becoming each other’s mirror image. Any participant can decide to move and the other participants must reflect that movement. This exercise is different because both participants can determine the movement but must be open to the movement of their partner and follow that as well.

Reflection:

• Who was the leader? Who was following? How did this exercise feel different from the first exercise? Which one did you enjoy better? Was it easy to work together?
• How do you see this reflecting your experience as a VIA leader?
• How can this reflect how we choose to enter into communities?
• How does this reflect the importance of dialogue between communities? What are some problems with having one-way dialogue like we did in the first exercise? What are the difficulties of sharing equal leadership? This exercise was a way for us to begin to reflect on how we are entering spaces. How do we dialogue with others?

When you are serving a community, we want to avoid the feeling of the first exercise. We are not there to “save” anybody and lead a community “into the light”. We want to get closer to what the second exercise reflects. We want to listen to each other and have mutual respect for each other, hence in the exercise moving by being true to how we may want to move but also attentive to our partner’s movements and respecting their decisions by following them as well. We are going with open ears and open hearts which will allow us to give back to the community but also receive in return. We are going to learn from each other through the shared dialogue we will have in being with the community.