Opening of the School for Young Leaders in Starobilsk city

24.4.2017

Twenty students and young activists will be trained in the School for Young Leaders and will have the skills to build a civil society in the realities of a small city.

On March 29, the first training was held in Starobilsk. During the day, participants studied civil society as an indicator of a developed democracy. They talked about public associations: forms, advantages, disadvantages; On the mechanisms of democracy. Young people formulated, drew and discussed the problems of civil society in the realities of a small city. Forms of local democracy at the local level were actively discussed, with the help of which local problems can be solved and decisions made by the authorities can be influenced.

The discussion was prompted by the exercise “If civil society … then …”, in which each of the young people described their associations of civil society with “building”, “color”, “music”, “geometric figure”, “film name”, “sensation” “aftertreatment.” Although the opinions of the young people were divided, the participants managed to reach a common conclusion about the characteristic features of civil society.

An interesting exercise was the “General Drawing”, where participants complemented each other’s drawing. The picture came out patriotic and expressed the ambitious prospects of our country for the future. In general, the event was filled with positive and activity of young people.

The second training “I am the leader: the question or the statement?”, which was held on March 30, was aimed at the formation of the qualities of personal leadership among the youth; skills in teamwork and the specific ability to form a team. The training consisted of four parts: the first art-motivational, the second on the theory and practice of personal leadership, the third team-building and the fourth – the final one, which was aimed at the formulation of individual desires that were embodied in feng shui techniques. It was on this day that participants learned not only to be leaders, but also discussed the difference between the manager and the leader, learned and visually demonstrated the SWOT-analysis of the small town by the example of Starobilsk, studied its needs and achievements. In the end, the coach proposed to play a game of survival. The game is aimed at developing team consolidation skills and team decision making. It caused a rather lively discussion, but both groups reached a consensus in a short time. In general, the day was remembered for its brightness and ambiguity.

April 18 – the third training. During the day, participants acquired the skills of tolerant communication as a necessity in conditions of living in the front-line zone. Young people created their communication portrait through introspection, organized a communication mail in three directions: “compliment,” “criticism,” and “an interesting statement about the participant in the school,” which operated for two days of training.

They developed life hack ways of understanding in conflict situations, practiced to build a dialogue through non-violent communication methods and modeled the conflict situation, which was solved by facilitation. The ways of overcoming conflicts, their causes and variations of subjects of conflict situations were actively discussed.

At the end, the coach proposed to play a game of non-verbal cohesion and mutual understanding. The game created a conflict situation, which was not solved by the school participants, but rather as a snowball only increased. The coach had to stop it.

Based on the results of this exercise, a discussion was organized where participants understood their mistakes and learned to explain themselves. The master class “Body language by the method of Alan Pisa” was interesting, where the participants experimented with verbal communication, learned some interesting exercises to establish mutual understanding and contact with any partner. Exercises came out fun and exciting. After lunch participants got active listening skills in the conditions of dialogue building. They started with an interesting game for attentiveness, and finished with exercises for listening and presenting your impressions.

The fourth training “The Role and Urgency of Project Management in the Development of a Small City”, which was held on April 19. It was aimed at forming the young people’s qualities about the basic principles of project management and the presentation of their project. The training consisted of two parts: theoretical and practical. In the first half of the day, participants learned about project management: the problems of definition, types of its use. The coach presented a presentation where the focus is on the “Iron Triangle” of the project budget, the “cascade model” the embodiment of its idea.

At the end of the lecture presentation, a discussion was started about the material heard and the application of new knowledge in practice. In the afternoon, participants learned how to apply this knowledge, namely, they could study and formulate the basic needs of the city, justify their idea of ​​the project, formulate the goals, objectives of their project, draw up a schedule of work and outlined the necessary resources. In short, representatives of working groups presented their ideas and presented them to all participants. Participants of the School for Young Leaders received a homework assignment: to complete and formalize the presentation of their project proposal.

This event is carried out by the Luhansk Public Initiative of Luhansk region within the framework of the project “The School for Young Leaders: Skills for Building Civil Society in the Realities of a Small City” in the framework of the small grant of the “Ukrainian Regional Platform of Public Initiatives” project, which is administered in the region by the All-Ukrainian Public Organization “Voter Committee of Ukraine” and is funded by the European Union, the representative office in Ukraine.

According to K.M. Kotelenets