Draw the Line 

Setting heathy boundaries is a challenge that everyone has to face and learn to navigate at some stage in both their personal and professional lives. This topic poses particular difficulty in collectivist cultures such as those found in the Middle East. The focus of the workshop was on, first, understanding what boundaries are and how they differ. Second, the causes behind failing to set healthy boundaries, and at which point people struggle to communicating them. Lastly, the integration and practice of assertiveness skills that can be applied in day-to-day life. In addition to this, the importance of understanding one’s personal life values in relation to the time and effort they dedicate to those values was also addressed. At the end of the workshop, participants were equipped with an action plan that they could put into place as soon as they left. In this, they were asked to pick out a boundary they wanted to start working on immediately. Ultimately, this workshop acted as a safe and productive space where people could share social dilemmas and learn about some possible solutions they could apply to their own lives. It is definitely a workshop that will be repeated again at a more advanced and larger scale.