“Back at the beginning of February, I was provided with the very ‘hand opening’ opportunity to develop my graphic facilitation skills by one of the most interesting Youth NGO’s in all of Estonia, if not the Baltics: Shokkin Group. Now, when it comes to drawing, visuals, art or just decent handwriting, I am what you might call ‘graphically blind’. So, all in all, I went into this expecting the worst. That’s not to say I wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. Graphic Facilitation has exploded in the world of youth work recently and it is a skill I at least need to have an understanding of for my future career progression. Needless to say, I wandered off onto this 8-day training course looking at a marker pen the way a 1-year-old looks at a potty.
So, this training course was an unusual one for me. It was the very standard European Union-funded Erasmus+ mobility of youth of workers type I find myself either coordinating or being a participant on regularly. However, these courses are usually based around areas that directly impact young people rather than how to deliver such information visually.
Now, let’s talk about the course and before we do, let us fast forward the name games, getting to know each other, blah blah blah. We all know how that works. After bribing us with beautiful Shokkin pencil cases and Neuland marker pens (they are pretty dope, to be honest) they threw us in the deep. Here I think this course will be someone teaching me to draw. But no. This is about mastering the way I already draw to create a unique and understandable style for my audience. At this point, I’m thinking there is a better chance for pigs to start flying.
However, after blowing my mind with some incredible trips and tricks that included people, signs, arrows, shadowing, speech bubbles and bullet points I’m starting to think “wow, I can do this”. For the majority of this training course, it goes a bit like this: Morning: general introduction to a certain area of graphic facilitation and some friendly tips with practice. Afternoon: “Ok guys, welcome to the Takeshi’s Castle of graphic facilitation!” We had full-on challenges from daily sum-ups through graphic visualisation to graphic recording and presenting at the same time. Sure, they trained us well, but they tested us hard! However, the best was yet to come…
Then, after developing our basic skills to be able to generally make vague sense through graphic facilitation (OK, that’s just me, the rest of the participants were pretty good), we were informed that there will be an open event in Tallinn where we will be passing on the knowledge about graphic facilitation to teachers, youth workers and youth leaders. At this point, I imagined a frog teaching cat to fly a plane. Yet, in the end, every single piece of useful ‘tips and tricks’ and knowledge in terms of graphic facilitation hit me like Mohammed Ali hit Joe Frazier, but unlike Joe Frazier, I was able to function and teach some graphic facilitation.
There you have it! Olalla and Jaanika with Shokkin did the impossible, they got and an artistically dumbfounded guy to be able to do and teach basic graphic facilitation. It was an amazing achievement. One that was done without abusing the funding stream on only the full thought of its benefit for the wider youth service in mind. More than can be said for a whole lot of these programmes. I will finish off my input here just but saying “Thank You”. It was hugely beneficial to me and once again Shokkin pulled the rabbit out of the hat.”
Dan John Carter
“I was wondering about graphic facilitation since I started working with young people. But I always thought that first you need to be a good artist! Thanks to #MARKERS2020 I have become aware that painting is not the most important part of graphic facilitation! First you need to learn how to listen to people and highlight the main idea of their speech. Moreover, it turns out that graphic visualisation is not such difficult as I expected. You just need to know how to combine colors, use shadows and lines!
The project showed me new tools and methods which I will definitely use at my work with young people, like creating my own visual vocabulary! It was another amazing experience with Shokkin Group Estonia! I would like to thank the trainers Olalla and Jaanika for sharing their knowledge and developing our skills. Thanks to them and their interest we visualized everything in every single free minute!”
Denis Krivosheev
“In the end of January 2020 I participated in the training course “MARKERS: Graphic facilitation in youth work”. First of all, the reason I joined was very interesting. I’m working in the same building with Shokkin Group Estonia and every time I go to lunch I walk through Shokkin’s office. You can imagine how impressed I was with all their drawings and posters all around their office. Also, every time I was making a tour for visitors of our youth center, people were always very inspired to see this kind of visual approach to youth work.
While following Shokkin on FB I found out that they would be doing this training. I felt that this was my chance to go and learn all these methods and tools to facilitate. Luckily, I was one of the chosen ones in the Estonian team and I was so happy. I was very enlightened that in the training we had two main aspects: how to facilitate graphically your thoughts and ideas and also how to draw when someone else is sharing theirs.
Usually in youth work we face those two ways when we need to graphically facilitate. So it was amazing to learn different methods and ways how to do so. And the participants! I still miss many of them. I love how Erasmus+ brings people together – in professional way and also as friends. I still miss my friend from Norway and after quarantine I’m planning to visit her :). The training course gave me so much as a youth worker, I got so much new information about other countries and I also got to share so much about my home. I felt united. I can’t wait to join another project soon!”
Elisabeth Gross
“What does it mean to think visually? If you have never tried, then it is definitely worth a try. Since February, I now think of comics in my head. During the training course with youth workers from all around Europe we learned to turn the thoughts in our heads into pictures. Life becomes much more colorful and interesting. And how is visual thinking connected to youth work? It makes the learning process much easier for youth and for yourself while you facilitate with the help of drawings.
The training week was a great pleasure. From morning to evening, almost every day we did not let markers out of our hands while we developed our visual facilitation skills in youth work. We made up our personal vocabularies, created mood cards, and the most memorable and, probably, difficult thing was to put the acquired knowledge into practice. We recorded a TED talk and told our stories while drawing key moments.
In general, in such a warm and homely atmosphere there were many memorable moments. The way we fried pancakes in the tipi in the evening and sang songs, and the unforgettable celebration of my birthday. This project has brought a lot to the treasury of my personal growth and growth in my profession as a youth worker. I wanted to immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice. And of course, I did it ASAP. It was a pleasure to prepare a training for youth with my new skills and it also brought the attention from the youngsters!
Come to visit our Shokkin office on Raua 23 and you will see how colorfully it is possible to design training materials and posters!”
Anna Zavolner