The Day the World Met in Herrsching!

Herrsching is a small town in Germany where the world meets. It's a beautiful and amazing place and the diversity of nationalities from around the world makes it more beautiful.

The 27^th International Leadership Workshop for Rural Youth was held  in Germany, Herresching where 98 innovative leaders, social workers, professionals and change makers from 63 countries gathered and continued the fantastic program for two successive weeks, the rationale behind that program being learning, sharing and creating.

This amazing program introduced me to many things, people and monuments and as they say,  the great memories will stay with me forever. Nevertheless,I would like to briefly explain some of the important activities of the program as below:

Leadership:

Despite of having years of experiences in  project management and implementation in Afghanistan, I found this program no only useful but also fresh and full of new techniques that I can apply in my current organization and daily project activities. The first week of the program focused on leadership, skills and talents, communication, team building skills, motivation, conflict resolution and management and presentation techniques using PowerPoint, posters and Prezi. Not forgetting  the morning boost games that aimed at helping the participants start the day with full energy. You may ask, why did i like that program? What was new for me? To be frank, the most important parts of this unique program was to know who is doing what and where and how we can address the main pressing issues in our communities.

Games:

Energizer Zip- Zap Exercise

The How: To practice the name of the Participants, all participants sit on chairs in a large circle and the trainer stands in the middle of the circle, points to a participant and sayseither Zip or Zap! When he/she says zip the participant indicated introduces the participant to his/her left and says “His/Her name is…..” When he/she says zap the participant introduces the name of the participant to his right and says “His/her name is…….”. Keep the pace fast after a while shout out zip zap! On ZIP- ZAP all the participants stand up and run and find another available chair. He or she takes over the role by pointing and saying Zip! Zap! Or Zip-Zap!

The Aim: To facilitate introductions between the participants.

Egg drop Exercise

Learning objective :The exercise is very good for team-building at the beginning or certain phases in a training or planning event. It helps participants in the learning process of getting to know each other, and they also discover their strengths and weaknesses under stress. In addition, the different roles individuals assume in teamwork are brought to light and the issue of tension within a group can be reflected upon.

Broken Squares Exercise

Learning Objective: The broken square exercise highlights the need for communication and cooperation in attending the groups’ goals. It emphasizes that the group as a whole can only achieve its objective once every Individual member has met his or her objective as well.

Visiting Historical Places

The entire team had the opportunity to visit Munich city, monuments and especially Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany which was established  in 1933. Dachau is a town in upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town and about north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 45,000 inhabitants. The historic centre of  the town with its 18th-century castle is  on an elevated ground and visible over a great distance. I was so curious to know about that place since I graduated from political science faculty and it saddened me on  how thousands of people were slaughtered in that concentration camp. I can only hope that the situation never repeats in the future.

Conclusion

It was a great opportunity for me to take part in this important training program, learn new things, make contacts with other leaders, and improve my leadership skills. Its worth mentioning that I'm the second person from Afghanistan who have had  the chance to attend this program in 50 years history of BLE organization.