Nemzetközi Tréning

Kedves mindenki!

Májusban egy 10 napos tréningen voltam, aminek az első része (7nap) egy trénereket képző nemzetközi tréning volt, a második fele (3nap) a táborvezetői tréning volt az olasz önkéntesek számára. Az első részről egy blogot kellett írnom, ami még nincs feltöltve a hivatalos honlapra (http://accessproject.yap.it/), és nem is tudom mikor lesz ott (a Behind the scenes menüpontban), de mindenesetre nektek idemásolom.

Sajnos csak angolul van meg, úgyhogy nagymamáktól elnézést kérek, de majd nektek elmesélem személyesen :) Amúgy a honlapon van egy csomó videó, amik valójában segédanyagként használhatók a jövőben a trénerek számára...de azért vannak köztük érdekesek is.

puszi

Ac.C.E.S.S. BLOG

1.       Introduction

Welcome all, J

My name is Doro, I’m a Hungarian volunteer, working in the office of YAP Italia in Rome in the frame of Erasmus Placement Program. I will participate on Ac.C.E.S.S. training, of which I’m going to write a blog, sharing with you my experiences on a daily basis.

First of all I would like to introduce myself, my previous experience regarding the topic, so that you can understand my expectations as well.

My job at YAP Italia is to support the placement of international volunteers in workcamps around the world and at the same time to assist training, workcamp organization activity and marketing in the office. The world of voluntary workcamps is pretty new for me, however I already have some experience regarding the training. I’ve already participated on some trainings related to non formal education, I’ve organized school camps, I’ve hold seminars and have mainly formal educational background of sustainability and accessibility. In the last few months I’ve become familiar with the activity of youth associations organizing international workcamps, EVS programs, etc. and also had the opportunity to get to know the basic principles of some campaigns of the Alliance (e.g. A4A).

From professional point of view the forthcoming Ac.C.E.S.S. training means to me a chance to get know some new tools, but as I already have some experience on this, I would like to focus on

• -          how trainers lead successfully those activities which I already know,
• -          what specific aims do they have with each activities, how do they build up the flow of a training,
• -          having followed to some extent the preparation phase, I would like to pay attention on the sensibility and flexibility of trainers, while adapting the activities, the program to the participants,
• -          evaluating how each activity reaches its intended aim,
• -          collecting new ideas regarding sustainability and accessibility, getting to know more in details the activity of different working groups of the Alliance,
• -          mapping the differences in way of thinking of youngsters’ arriving from various nations,
• -          to become more familiar with the world of international youth programs (e.g. workcamps), as mostly all participants have some experience in this field.

From personal point of view, it’s always a great opportunity in an international group of young people to find new friends, get to know new aspects of different cultures, have some crazy time together and … last but not least to find new reasons to visit another city in the future and to find potential couches for your future trips ;)

1. day (03.05.2014)

After the arrival day having to get know a bit each other with the other participants - on the first working day we started with a great, delicious Armenian breakfast. As a new idea, instead of international dinner the participants of each nation shall prepare the traditional breakfast…(made by our grandmothers),

During the first intensive day of the training we had the chance to experience personally

• -          how much people naturally do not take into consideration the possibility of cooperation in some situations,
• -          how much competition is part of our human being,
• -          how extremely hard is it for 10 people to arrive to a conclusion regarding a task, which seems to be very easy, such as describing the ideal society,

• -          how confusing it can be to observe another society, including its habits, taboos, rules. Even if we try so hard, in many cases we’ll observe only the surface of it, which we might be able to adapt, but we won’t understand the underlying principles (such as by misunderstanding the protection of animals in one society, as the cult of adoration of a cow queen J )

Some of these group dynamics might seem to be so obvious but when you personally experience them, you might be so surprised how strong effect they have on you. It was great to listen the explanation of our trainers about the underlying process of the activities. We had several instructions regarding the circumstances (situations, type of groups, intended aims) among which they might be used, with regard to the suggestions about the implementation.

to be continued…

2.     day (04.05.2014)

The second day of our training began with a healthy and refreshing German breakfast. We’ve started our session with listening to the report of our first journalist team, summarizing the previous day, making an interview with one of the participants and sharing the story about the foundation of the Sant’Antonio estate.

During the day we shared our ideas about formal and non-formal education, highlighting the fact that however non-formal education might be in most cases more personal, more efficient, formal education provides an important basis to it. We discussed the features of a super-leader, and the different phases of group-forming, in order to be able to recognize them in other situations, other group activities as well. With this skill participants might understand better the group dynamics taken place in a group led by them in the future and be able to move forward from different phases of group-forming to the ones ahead.

We also experienced how hard it is to define such a complex phenomenon as active citizenship, and how much more difficult it is to come to a common definition with other people. The day was closed by the introductory presentations of participants about the activity of their sending organization or about some benchmarks regarding the central topics of the training.

3. day (05.05.2014)

The day started with the delicious Ukrainian sweet breakfast, fried pastry made of grated apple providing enough energy for the morning session to our participants. We listened to the report of our journalist team among others about the story of a tree, called Theodora, which holds currently that particular swing in the garden of Sant’Antonio.

In the morning session after the first energizer we took part in the activity called survival of the countries. It was extremely interesting to experience our personal behavior and subconscious reaction in the fight for resources acting as different nations of the world.

“Tell me I will forget it,

show me I will remember it,

involve me, I will understand it.”

Later on we had a chance to take the first step toward active sustainability, by for example

• -         collecting concrete actions, urging environment-conscious behavior (Signs: “Switch off the light, babe”, “Do you really need me? ;) ” - car),
• -          creating artworks and articles for everyday use out of garbage (and eventually dancing Lambada for peace), etc.

In the afternoon session we started the topic of social inclusion, with sharing personal experiences in small groups and creating living statues regarding the different examples of exclusion. We designed the living machine of social inclusion out of components as key factors of its definition.

The intercultural night was organized around the campfire, the participants from each country introduced some examples of their gastronomy, traditional songs and dances involving all the others in the presentations.

Volt ám éneklés is.. :)

Megosztom veletek ezt is, bár nem vagyok rá túl büszke :)

Lényeg, hogy imádták! ;)

https://soundcloud.com/tamamenfransiz/hesh-hesh-or-teteye#t=0:24

 

 4.     day (06.05.2014)

On the 4th day after the Spanish breakfast all the participants headed to Rome to spend a relaxing free day there, recharging energy sources for the second part of the training. During sight-seeing a special task was to be accomplished by each group, they had to shoot pictures in the city, representing the positive and negative aspects of the topics discussed on the previous days (Active Citizenship, Sustainability, Social Inclusion).

In the short evening session the mid-term evaluation took place, where all participants had the opportunity to describe their feelings, express their ideas regarding the training.

5. day (07.05.2014)

The journalist team started the morning session with the storytelling illustrated by the participants themselves and a radio report about Olga and her adventures in India. This was followed by the presentation of the collected photos, shot by the groups discovering Rome during their free day.

The moving debate, the next activity of conflict management, was interesting, as there was the possibility to take stands and express our thoughts regarding some key issues. On the other hand it proved that nothing is black or white, no strict rules can be taken, we have to evaluate every single situation with regard to the circumstances.

The rest of the session focused on the negative and positive aspects of conflicts and the intercultural learning process, highlighting that an activity of international team does not mean necessarily intercultural learning. It can also have a negative effect, when stereotypes are not weakened but they get even stronger. The leader/ moderator of a group has to pay attention on group dynamics and has to introduce activities, that could stop the harmful process and facilitate acceptance and peaceful coexistence. An important aspect is that before going to an intercultural environment one should try to discover his/her own iceberg, including the visible, easily detected attributes and the hidden features as well.

During the afternoon as a summary of all the activities of the training, we had an extremely valuable overview of the used methodologies, their aims, special features. This was followed by the division of groups regarding the activities and workshops to be done with the Italian campleaders, arriving on the following day. We experienced, how difficult it is to prepare a workshop starting from the setting of objectives and aims on the basis of the needs of the group and finishing with the choice of the used method, the implementation itself and the phase of evaluation (NAOMIE model).

6.  day (08.05.2014)

During the day all the groups had the opportunity to organize a rehearsal of the planned activities involving the other participants of the training, therefore we had four sessions, each of them followed by the feedback:

• -          Name-games, welcome ceremony, icebreaking
• -          Team building
• -          Workshop on Social Inclusion
• -          Workshop on Sustainability

It was important to start the day with the principles of the good feedback, so that it will contain useful information, will be presented in a proper way, will be accepted and implemented successfully. The activities were well-planned, but the possibility to try it first among artificial circumstances made mostly everyone feel more comfortable and confident, moreover we could work on them for a few more hours to improve them.

In the afternoon the Italian future-campleaders arrived, with whom the first group started the name-games after dinner, which was followed by a spontaneous welcome party.

7.  day (09.05.2014)

The last day was full of excitement and enthusiasm among international participants, who were due to lead all the activities with the Italian campleaders. While waiting for their turn the groups had to prepare a methodological description regarding their activity, which will be added to the toolkit shared among trainers. It was an important phase, as however we received some schemes and ideas, we also made several modifications on the original activities to adapt them to the needs of the campleaders.

It was a particular feeling to sit among the Italian participants sharing with them what we experienced in the last few days. Their creativity, their cooperative and active participation was a great contribution to the success of all the activities. As the final evaluation proved, this experience inspired most of us to take an active role in the future as well in the world of volunteering and non-formal education. Personally I seriously take into consideration to continue this learning procedure and maybe to become a trainer one day… J

As every story has to be ended once, we also needed to say good bye to each other, to our trainers and our Italian friends. It was a great experience, we learned a lot and in return - for sure we also shared a lot. Thank you for everyone! Hope to see you soon!