Pilot training took part in the office of Internationaler Bund Polska in Krakow on August 17th 2017. Internationaler Bund Polska supports volunteering, vocational education of youth and adults and works in favor of professional and social integration of the ones in danger of social exclusion. For many years IB Polska is hosting and coordinating EVS volunteers who work mainly with children and young adults, often with disabilities. Both, the volunteers and organization offers various workshops and activities for young people from Krakow and around.
Workshop was facilitated by Paulina Drzal- facilitator of learning, drama trainer and former EVS coordinator. Paulina is a representative of Green Elephant Foundation. The meeting was promoted through the volunteers, newsletter within the organization and also shared with mentors and the coordinators within the EVS hosting organizations.
Meeting was divided into three parts. First part was an introduction to the topic and small task for participants together with sharing discoveries. Second part was an introduction with a video of Marshall Rosenberg together with comments from participants and the third part was based on brainstorming on the usage of NVC methodology in the online context.
The workshop was attended by 5 participants and led by one facilitator: Paulina Drzal from Green Elephant Foundation. Four of the participants were current and former EVS volunteers and there was also one person representing the coordinators of the international projects. 3 Volunteers work in Autism Centre with children and youth facing different stages of autistic disorders and one of them works in the office managing cultural and educational events for international community of young people in Krakow and also for local youth. All of them are willing to continue their work in social and NGO sector and keep using the knowledge gained not only during this specific workshop, but also other ones implemented in the frame of their projects.
Participants concluded, that they would be willing to continue with the topic and the expressed the need of having a practical follow-up activity. Some voices appeared that acting within Social Media or Internet in general is too weak tool for action and it will not bring the change. The discussion followed, that all in all, we can become the agents for change and in a way by modeling behavior and actually Social Media is a powerful tool for social change.
Many questions appeared regarding life examples of nonviolent communication usage and the high interest was noticed while watching the original video by Marshall Rosenberg.
