INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE FOR COACHES IN ARMENIA
The training course “Coaching for Change” for youth workers and people working with groups or individuals was organized by Foreign Students of Luxembourg, was hosted by “World Independent Youth Union” NGO and financed by Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme, National Agency of Luxembourg. It took place from 28 January to 6 February 2016 in Yerevan, Armenia. The project brought together 33 participants from 11 countries: Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, and Russian Federation. The aim of the course was to increase knowledge in specific areas and prepare coaches within a short period of time and provide them with new working tools and methods.
The training course started with ice breakers and team-building activities, clarifying the expectations and possible contributions of participants. After these exercises a small city quest was organized. Participants had tasks to communicate with locals, find out market places and collect information about Armenia and Armenians.
There were also name games, performances about coaching, interactive sessions on who the coach is and how they should act, etc. Trainers provided correct characteristics of a good trainer, mentor, psychologist, expert, and coach. Participants got a chance to explore the methods of the motivational learning: building relationship and trust, factors that affect motivation, as well as accessing the needs and setting the goals. Participants had a session about GROW practice model and a task to discuss topics as goals, options, reality and motivations. Small groups introduced their discussions’ conclusions in the form of presentations. Another session was dedicated to practicing coaching methods in pair. After summing up the results of coaching session participants in national teams started to discuss youngsters’ problems in their countries. As a result of presentations a big mind map of the identified problems was generated. One of the most noticeable sessions was learning creativity tools for using them in coaching. Another important educational method used was analyzing certain examples of coaching practices.
Besides the new educational and working tools, the project gave participants the opportunity to meet people from various nations and share their own cultures and visions on life. For this purpose an international evening was organized, where participants prepared traditional food, games, songs and dances to show the cultures of their countries. Last days of the project were dedicated to the development of new ideas for future cooperation among participants. At the end of the training course there was a final evaluation of the project and award of Youthpasses.
