In the beginning of February Anna, one of our members in Shokkin Group Estonia had the chance to take part in one week training in Germany from the Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg.
“The qualification concept of Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg is focused on the personal development of every individual by strengthening their social skills, the willingness to take responsibility and the ability to shape inclusive group processes.”
The program included several seminars was aimed at studying the basic principles and methods of the facilitative approach of education. The role of the facilitator is not only about how much the group learn the skills the trainer has, but more about applying team knowledge to achieve the objectives of the seminars, acquire new knowledge or skills, and analyze the processes.
Keep learning
Starting from 2nd of February, Anna started her educational year of facilitation in Berlin. Together with her, participants from many cities of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, etc. The first stage of training included theoretical sessions on group dynamics, principles of facilitation, the methodology used in the facilitative approach, reflection, and much more. The aim of the theoretical part of the educational system was to prepare informational ground on facilitation for participants with different levels of experience.
The second part of the week was more practical. It was divided into two parts: individual and group. Each participant had the opportunity to prepare and conduct an individual session in order to try out different methods. The group session was directed to the ability to work in a team. The goal is to create a plan of a real program and implementation of one session into reality.
In addition to the hard working days, participants were given a day for the meeting of the main office of THK, where they got acquainted with the organization from the inside, its employees and where they took part in a animate discussion on the topic of active citizenship. After that, everyone had the opportunity to take a walk around Berlin, get acquainted with the architecture, shops and bars of the city. 🙂
No limits to perfection
Since the program is going to be a whole year, there are several tasks that Anna should implement before the final seminar in Berlin February 2020. The main aim is to learn by preparing and implementing seminars. To make students’ life easier, everyone got a supervisor from Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg facilitators’ pool. Anna is going to work together with Svetlana, currently living in Portugal. They already had their first skype meeting and Svetlana already started helping Anna with developing her personal goals in facilitation approaches.
Anna Arharova
Participant of the THK’s trainers programme 2019