APR & MAY, 2018_Tunis & Rabat.

TWO TRAINING WORKSHOPS:

SHIFT, SHAPE AND SHARE - Methodologies, tools and skills

11 – 15 April 2018, La Marsa, Tunis

&

REMODEL YOUR CULTURAL & ARTISTIC WORK – integrating resilience, experiential learning, and leading to success

4 – 8 May 2018, Rabat, Morocco

WHY

We all know that learning is a fundamental value. We also know that the best training experiences are enjoyable and significant in some way and that training is a field and a practice that is constantly evolving and we need to look after our own development too. 

As professionals involved in cultural work (and other related fields), we have been implementing projects that have left their mark on our communities – some more significantly than others.  Some projects we have implemented included a learning component.

The two workshops are about your professional development, about empowering you to rethink your work and remodel your projects in order, on the one hand, to be better able to address the many challenges that your communities are facing on a daily basis, and on the other, to integrate the learning component more effectively. The workshops will strive to unlock your potential and reshape your production and promotion of cultural and artistic projects, to play an essential role in the building of strong societies.

The first workshop is a five day programme about shifting our thinking and expectations; shaping fun and effective learning experiences; and sharing the best practice in an inspiring and safe space, the better to support cultural advocacy, cultural resilience, education, policy and management in the Southern Mediterranean region.

The second workshop is also a five day programme that explores models of resilience in cultural and artistic work within the context of the Arab region – in programming, resourcing, campaigning, use of social media and approach to audiences. It will underline resilience as emergency work that deals with conflict, is closely linked to its context, adopts a critical approach, involves risk taking, learning by doing, and succeeding!    

The two programmes are an important step towards creating a community of practice for the future, comprising cultural operators, managers, academics and trainers, together with those working in related fields such as human rights, sustainable development and public policy making.

WHAT

Both workshops will guarantee a hands-on and interactive programme.

The first workshop will explore:

1. The principles and practices of adult learning, starting with an exploration of how you learn best
2. Looking learning within a project: The value of a project oriented approach and taking responsibility for one’s own learning
3. Harnessing the power of a group: group learning, collective negotiating, facilitating and coaching in cultural projects
4. Designing spaces for facilitation, within a team, for debates or with communities
5. Reflective practice and modelling back: building on “appreciative inquiry”, starting from your own experiences and elaborating new tools and methodologies

You will have the opportunity to build, strengthen and revisit your own competencies in all these areas of activity. The result should be new perspectives, refreshed skills, enhanced knowledge and a broader range of approaches to try in your training projects, teaching and advocacy when you return to work.

The second workshop will focus on cultural resilience and explore:

1. The concept and meaning of resilience at local level based on practice, case studies form the Arab region
2. Resilience as a political/social issue following a critical approach
3. Learning as a feature of resilience: learning with, for and about resilience
4. Capacity development as a tool for resilience
5. Resilience, social media, new technologies and new spaces
6. Resilience, diversity and the challenge of new definitions of identities 
7. Resilience, Renewal and Creativity
8. Leadership, partnership building for the development of projects, collaborative work, negotiation
9. Giving and receiving feedback, coaching
10. Models for programming and how to integrate them in project management
11. Monitoring and evaluating

HOW

We want to put you (and your proposed project ideas) at the centre of these two encounters. We will work with a range of methodologies and this, most importantly, includes learning from each other, so expect lots of pair, small and large group work. Sometimes we’ll have parallel sessions on the same or different topics. Sharing your own knowledge and expertise and reflecting in and on experiences will be vital and there will be time for this.

We - as the training team - will be open and flexible about our own processes and the ways in which we revise and adapt things, with you, as we go along. Sometimes we’ll work solo with you and at others we’ll co-train. We’ll all have opportunities to exchange; we’ll eat together; we’ll talk; and we’ll laugh. It’s all part of the training.

We want our time together to be a genuinely enjoyable collaborative learning experience for all of us: none of us should be in the same place at the end as we were at the beginning.

[1] See Hicham Houfaida, 2017; Saskia Sassen refers to the phenomena of expulsion that is increasing in contemporary societies, 2014