Training For Trainers programme:
sustaining resistance, empowering renewal
In October 2014 I participated in the Sustaining Resistance, Empowering Renewal: Training for Trainers programme, made possible as I was offered a funded place by the organisation. I decided to do this because a culture of sustainable activism is missing in Romania and in general in Eastern Europe.
The training has gone on to have a great impact in both my work and personal life, and as a result I have become much more aware of the dynamics happening in the groups I am working with. What I’ve learned during the training helped a lot in being able to address different problems in our meeting, as I had a greater knowledge of skills and tools useful in facilitation of group processes and workshops.
Sustainability and preventing burnout became very important topics for me and this impacted the trainings I held afterwards. I started to bring up the discussion about what holds us together, active and strong on longterm in almost every session, no matter what the main topic was about.
In the Training for Trainers I made new friends and met some old ones. We continued to work together to spread the knowledge about sustainability, mostly in Eastern Europe. In February I was part of a tour in the Balkan region offering workshops on preventing stress and burnout for groups that are doing migrant solidarity work. In May we organised a Training for Trainers for Central and Eastern Europe where we talked a lot about individual and collective/group sustainability.
I am very grateful for everything I experienced during the training in Ecodharma, the motivation and inspiration I received from the trainers and the participants. The time spent there was a turning point in my life, which I will always appreciate and remember.