FLOW: Facilitating, Learning, Organising and Welcoming! A critical Training of Trainers

Background of the training

Peace education in times of pandemics, the climate crisis, right-wing politics on the rise, and ongoing global injustices is needed more than ever. But what does it really mean to include justice aspects in trainings, seminars, and educational projects? How can we include the values of SCI, such as social justice, activism, climate justice, global justice, etc. into our work as trainers?

In this online Training of Trainers, we discuss the most important skills, methods, and approaches to get in a good flow while initiating, organising and managing educational projects. As an extra, we will have a closer look at how power structures can be reproduced in the organisation of projects and how we could integrate SCI values on all levels of organising educational projects.

The main topics of the training are: 

• Non-formal education – basic understanding and methodology
• Group dynamics, creating safer spaces in groups
• Intersectional perspectives when organising educational projects (Global Justice, Gender, Race, Inclusion, etc.)
• Organising climate just and eco-friendly projects
• Reflections on power structures when organising educational projects
• How to do educational projects online
• Project management skills for organizing projects, funding possibilities for educational activities
• Resources and toolkits to use as a trainer
• Creation of new project ideas

We expect all participants to come up with a (small) educational project they would like to conduct online or offline until September 2021 on their own. The trainers will support them in this process during the training and also afterward. We set this training up to be interactive, fun, and with a diverse range of methods, with movement and interactivity. During this project, we want to create an atmosphere of peace, empathy, belonging, and safety within our group. We have made positive experiences with online training projects in the past few months and are excited about creating group dynamics across computer screens.  This training is funded by the European Commission as part of the Erasmus+ programme.

Trainers

Simon* (they/no pronoun) is a trainer, facilitator and activist based in Leipzig, Germany. Their main topics are climate justice, mobility, anti-discrimination, gender as well as project management and group structures. Simon* works as a trainer for SCI and other NGOs since 2014 and gathered many experiences in online trainings during the last year.

Thomas (he/they) is a trainer, facilitator and activist based in Berlin, Germany. His main focuses are gender and queer rights, climate justice, global justice and antimilitarism. He has done many non-formal education projects around peace with SCI in the past years. During the pandemic, Thomas has translated a lot of methods he uses in real life into the online sphere and continues doing peace education online.

Online Training

We decided to spread the training out over a longer period of time to make it more accessible to people who also work or study next to participating. The training will take place on the following days at these times in March 2020. All times are Central European Time (CET) → convert to your time zone here:

• Saturday, 6 March 10:00-16:30 CET
• Sunday, 7 March 13:00-16:30 CET
• Tuesday, 9 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Thursday, 11 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Tuesday, 16 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Thursday, 18 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Tuesday, 23 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Thursday, 25 March 18:00-20:00 CET
• Saturday, 27 March 10:00-16:30 CET 
• Besides, you will have individual tasks to do between the sessions, which you can schedule individually. 

What you need:

• A device with a webcam and microphone (best is a laptop or computer), maybe a headset.
• A  good internet connection that works with video calls (possibly we could support you with getting a better connection for the duration of the project)
• Installed and newly updated Zoom application on your device
• Motivation: It is crucial for us that you are motivated to participate throughout the whole project, that you are not missing on any day of the project.

Participant’s profile

All participants selected for this project must meet the following criteria:

• be 18 years old or older
• have worked as trainers and facilitators and intend to improve their skills in organising educational projects OR have a strong interest in becoming trainers and facilitators
• be able to work in English
• be interested in the training topics and have a strong motivation to act as a multiplier
• commit to implementing the learned knowledge and skills in practice in their local context by coming up with an educational project and shaping it in the course of the training
• commit to actively participate from the beginning to the end of the trainin

All participants will be expected and stimulated to contribute to the activities and discussions. There is also space for participants to come up with their own ideas and present some methods or workshops they are experienced in and they want to share. Because of our EU funding, we will give priority to applications coming from our official partner organisations in Belgium, Ireland, Estonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Russia, Jordan, Bulgaria and Hungary, but we also have some places for people from all over the world who are motivated to join. We explicitly encourage participants of all genders, sexual orientations, abilities, races and ethnic backgrounds to apply. 

All those accepted will later receive a detailed info sheet (incl. info on how to access Zoom, more info about the agenda of the project, etc).