Social City Journal:
The Day 1 in the Training Course - Social City
From getting to know each other and breaking the ice in the morning, we got introduced into the topic, aims and planed outcomes of the project. The afternoon started with intensive simulation workshop. We were asked to develop the project idea related with urban life and after that, persuade the City council and Mayor (out trainers) to get financial support for our ideas. On our own skin We realized how difficult this might be. We spent our first evening altogether discovering the city center with lot of pizzas and lots of laughs. It's important to emphasize that the group has already bonded well so far. So, let's see what will the other days bring!
Day #1
Workshop
1) Ice breakers - getting to know each other by sharing our favorite movies, putting ourselves in a line according to our age, our height and our travel experience without any verbal communication. Another ice breaker was to talk about different topics simulating a speed date with other participants.
- we developed non verbal communication, get an insight how the group is created,
2) Presentation of the project & expectation tree - Brief summary of the project was followed by workshop dedicated to our expectations, fears and contributions related to this training. We used the board and sticky notes for this activity, after follow up session we continued by setting the rules that each of us wants to follow during the project.
- we learn an effective tools to start a group session
3) What is a city - On three posters we wrote down what are the social and the urban values and how youth workers can motivate young people to participate in city life. We had to agree or disagree on the ideas and to reach a common ground.
- we developed argumentation, persuasion and how to express our ideas effectively in the short time period
4) Simulation game - We simulated the creation of a community project. We had to prove that is financially sustainable and profitable for the city and the people living in it. We had to convince the mayor and the financial council.
- we worked on our persuasion skills and brainstorming
5) Comfy group - We had to divide in our country groups and give feedback to the trainers & organizers about the first day (grades for the day as a whole, best activity, observations and suggestions and general feeling)
