I came into the Sankofa Intergenerational Learning Hub’s Appreciative Leadership Training in Athens with an open-mind. This was not the first time I participated so I knew what to expect from the organisation and felt confident that I would learn a lot, would be in a group of like-minded people and enjoy deep meaningful conversations. One word stayed with me throughout the week: “mentorship”.”
I recently went to Athens to participate in Appreciative learning training programme. I met some amazing people, who are involved in some incredible work. As a recent graduate, I feel like this training has helped me to gain clarity about what I would like to do in the future and has given me the confidence and skills to develop my own project.
Recently, two groups of community leaders, change makers have returned from MEL Europe courses in Crete, Greece. They were able to dive into their experiences and learning journeys as they explored how to build their resilience and mastered Methods of Participatory design. We’d like to thank our partner, Fractality for hosting us and facilitating our sessions.
My experience in Athens opened my mind to all the new possibilities for my career.I was in a different mind space before I went to Athens. Now, I came back to studying and decided to upgreade my job. I felt I wasn’t making enough difference. Now I feel I’m on the right path to do so.
Athens proved to be a wonderful environment in which to participate in this creative, mysterious, potent and radically inclusive approach to bottoming-out the hidden dynamics at play within organisational systems. Our two Greek facilitators Markos and Chrysoula, skillfully lead the process of wrangling our headstrong group, sharing their deep knowledge of Systemic Constellations and guiding us in the process of leaning-into and exploring our lived experience of our organisational settings. They effectively challenged us to dream, envision and sense possible desirable futures at personal and organisational levels. Together they demonstrated palpable expertise, real warmth and passion for the work. I was simultaneously exhausted, energised, surprised, delighted and inspired over the course of the week. It inevitably does when working at depth with psychological and emotional dynamics in organisational settings, everyone ‘showed-up’ in terms of their commitment, engagement, presence and willingness to embrace this -for most present- novel way of working.
C’est la vie – great week with my head getting to grips with the enormity of our progress to this stage so far and excitement and optimism of what lay ahead. Thanks all for making it an enjoyable and fun event – we needed both!
I felt truly honoured to engage in the process with you all as well as getting to know some of you more as well as meeting new fellows. Big up Markos for your skilled leadership of the work and Chrisoula for your sensitive facilitation.
What helped the process even more was being around leaders who shared my experience of challenges and barriers, despite working on projects that were completely different to mine. Although our interest and specialisms differed, we shared the willingness to find solutions and talk though them, in addition to being opened enough to tease out these challenges among a group of strangers, who each provided a different perspective and insight gathered through some of the Methods of Participatory Design, some of which include, The Circle Way, Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space Technology.
I recently went to Athens to participate in Appreciative learning training programme. I met some amazing people, who are involved in some incredible work. As a recent graduate, I feel like this training has helped me to gain clarity about what I would like to do in the future and has given me the confidence and skills to develop my own project.
The course revealed how hosting is a fluid process that we all participate in, whether that is individually or within a group setting. As human beings we each play hosts to our own thoughts and feelings, as social beings we are also hosts to the different relationships we are part of – what kind of host do you want to be? This is an important question to ask not only with regards to facilitating community engagement but also with regards to cultivating a relationship with self.