New Year started thinking of how to become more advance leader. I was excited when I had got an invitation from organization Innovation Office (VšĮ Inovacijų biuras) to participate in Erasmus+ training course ,,Total Advance“ in Krzyzowa for the second time. It is the second part of the project ,,Training of trainers and active leaders“ (TOTAL). This TOTAL meeting was dedicated to trainers with an average experience in implementation of trainings for young people with clear need to learn about trainer’s portfolio, development, competences, development of a learning plan, and other skills and necessary knowledge for a professional trainer. So, all week I had strong prepared activities which gave me a lot of experience how to be more motivated, open-minded, more brave in my daily life and how work in better way with young people of my country or maybe working in another countries in the future 🙂
But now let’s start to talk from the beginning. I am very glad because I had a companion Marija, who is also from Lithuania. She said ,,Yes“ for this adventure and all of the time we were together. Together we had a long ride from Lithuania to Poland by bus. When we arrived we had a 12 hours break to explore the city of Wroclaw. The weather wasn‘t good because it was the time of the winter, but still we wanted to see more, so all of the day we were walking and exploring the city. Finally, all project people met in Petrol station at 5 p.m., all set down on the bus and went to Krzyzowa. When I came to Krzyzowa, I was feeling like I was at home because the first time when I was there I had had a very good time. Also, it was very nice to meet same people from previous events. First evening started with dinner and meeting. It was nice to meet our new friends from different countries.
Next day the hard working week had started with a lot of interesting sessions. Of course, the first day was for knowing each other better, speaking about ground rules of project, also we played team building games and spoke about NGO fairs. Next days we talked about a lot of kind competences: trainers, frameworks, European training strategy and British council trainer competence framework, intercultural competences. For the 6th day of project we had to prepare participant-led sessions, so all participants had an ability to show creativity and knowledge, share minds and ideas from personal experience, also we had a possibility to express ourselves. The last day of project was for creating partnership meeting and learn more about Erasmus+ opportunities.
In the evenings, after serious parts of project, we had less serious activities: opening party at first evening, two nights for intercultural evenings, Humour in NFL evening, two free evenings and the last evening was Awarding ceremony.
Of course, all the time I was wondering how much I need improve my skills if I want to be a good leader as a trainer, because I saw from closer distance the cuisine of Erasmus+, and also a lot of unknown things for me, which still looks intricate and strange. But we didn’t know everything well, at first it looked very dangerous and unreachable, but step by step we could know it better and better if a desire is big.
A lot of inspirations, also a lot of changing of my thinking appeared inside me. Everyday I saw and talked with a lot of smart, enthusiastic and inspiring people who helped to change myself, helped to be more active and more open-minded for opportunities and for the world. A lot of different people from 15 Europe countries every moment gave me messages about how to create the world which I would like to see in my daily life. I am very appreciate and I am very thankful for these opportunities 🙂
