Susan Hackney, Mediation and Training Collaborative, Tax Day Rally Speech, Greenfield, April 14, 2018
Hello Everyone! I’m Susan Hackney, here on behalf of The Mediation & Training Collaborative, a program of Community Action. The Mediation & Training Collaborative helps people resolve conflict peacefully–through mediation, through one-on-one conflict coach, through group facilitation. And it helps people learn to resolve their own conflicts more effectively through courses in communication and mediation.
Last year, The Mediation & Training Collaborative worked with 1,421 people with a budget of just $244,500. That’s under a quarter of a million dollars.
Meanwhile, ONE military drone* costs more than $12.5 million to produce. That’s approximately 51 times the entire budget of The Mediation & Training Collaborative. Last year, the Air Force ordered 10 of these drones. After production, the cost to fly a drone is between $2,500 and $3,500 PER HOUR.
If The Mediation & Training Collaborative had a FRACTION of the cost of the production of ONE military drone, it could help resolve the conflicts of every individual, every couple and every group in Franklin County. With time and staff left over to help people in Hampshire and Hampden Counties as well!
If you’d like more information about mediation, about conflict coaching, about facilitation or about communication or mediation courses, please come talk to me or take some of the literature on the table.
Thank you for being here today. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for continuing to stand up and speak out!
*The MQ-9 Reaper