“This training course gave a perfect final touch to this year, as it helped me to add a tick behind one of the goals I had set for 2022… to develop my storytelling and visual communication skills.
The duration of the training course was short (only three days), but since the program was intense and well-structured, I feel I learned more than I have done in some other training courses with longer duration.
At first, we had a chance to reflect on the message we want to deliver through storytelling, visuals and/or podcasts. To have a clear message and engaging story, we need to be aware of our purpose, WHY we do what we do. Surely, it was not easy to figure out my mission or IKIGAI within just one day, but at least I got some tools to support my reflection process and for building up a meaningful story.
The second day was dedicated to visual communication.
Before the training I had just an abstract goal to improve my graphic facilitation skills, but now I’m even more fascinated into this topic and have finally set more concrete steps and smaller goals how I could develop these skills further.
For instance, I have decided to create my own visual dictionary with the key terms I use in my work life. Also, I got encouraged to try out more of what Canva has to offer. So far, I have kept rather distance with everything digital (there are exceptions though) but it is time to step out of the comfort zone.
The biggest achievement was producing a podcast from scratch. It summed up everything we had learned regarding storytelling, visual design (cover photo) and technical part of podcast production (recording and post-production in the computer).
I could have never thought I would say that, but thanks to this experience I now consider creating a podcast for one educational project with my colleague. That’s how empowered I am!”
Caroline Männik
“My journey to “Amplify!” started in the Shokkin office, meeting the international group that arrived from Austria, Slovakia, Spain and Estonia. On the way to Paunküla I already had a little time to speak with some of the participants, like Gagik from Armenia, who is now volunteering in the same youth center where I did my volunteering service as well.
When we arrived to the venue, Pavel and the trainers from Austria and Slovakia were waiting for us in the main room. They gave us some instructions for the evening, had a nice dinner together and got to know each other with the first session of the training.
During the next few days we had lots of dynamic activities to work on topics related to storytelling, new media to create interactive material for teaching, visual communication and podcasting, everything mostly from zero to hero.
We also had some tasks to deliver in teams. For example, to research about the new media in gamification like video games, board games, quizzes, etc.. We practiced group storytelling and had a human library, created posts for Facebook or Instagram using visual communication recommendations, and we recorded a conversation about our first contact with youth work as an episode of our podcast ”Becoming youth workers”.
There was a lot of learning in only four days, especially from the organizers of the project. It was shown in the most wonderful way the cooperation, enthusiasm, teamwork, and creativity. All the people felt that connection that made us desire for more.
Until the last day we had lots of fantastic moments, because the people that attended as participants made it also more special: different ages, fields, nations, etc., we all had a great and inspiring time to keep up with the main ideas that each one desired to develop.
I appreciated the time for planning moments in which people can feel more connected. Funnily enough, apart from all the insights, another favorite moment was collecting the snow to jump on after the sauna. Such a great time doing something together sharing the same purpose.”
Georgina Balboa
