Humanium has delivered its first ever introductory e-training workshop to child rights professionals. The workshop aimed to make connections in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, and collaborate by skill-sharing for the improvement of individual, and organisational, humanitarian child rights activities.
The Concept of Child Rights Training for Professionals
Humanium was thrilled to provide introductory e-training, free of charge, to 15 other professionals as part of a new initiative to disseminate the skill-sharing that Humanium has carried out bi-annually in Rwanda since 2015 through our hands-on ‘Child Rights Workshops’, to (I)NGO professionals worldwide. The concept is that by creating links between child rights workers, a far greater number of affected people will benefit from the unique humane child rights tools that Humanium has developed over the years.
“Ninety minutes of free Child Rights Coaching was born as an idea to give a taste of the tools Humanium uses in its workshops, so that they may be shared in participants’ own operational contexts and used further empower beneficiaries.”
Arndt Soret, Humanium’s co-founder and CEO (pictured above on the right)
Indeed, over the past five years Humanium has delivered 82 workshops to 2,586 people in Rwanda (and in India) alongside our Coach Facilitators, Karen Makkes van der Deijl and Donatella Cannella (left and centre of the above photo respectively). Karen is a professional coach with over 15 years of training experience and Donatella is a professional co-active coach who has facilitated training for NATO executives and contributed to Humanium’s workshop initiatives since 2015. They both warmly shared their knowledge and expertise in Humanium’s first ever introductory Child Rights Workshop.
The Content of Our First Training Session
During our private webinar, Humanium’s co-founder and CEO Arndt Soret welcomed participants and made a heartfelt opening introduction. Karen and Donatella then took the lead on a series of participatory exercises that both engaged and connected participants from different organisations and walks of life. ‘Deep listening’ was practised by attendees in Zoom ‘Break-off rooms’ in order to emphasise the importance of listening and engaging sincerely, better enabling practitioners to communicate meaningfully with beneficiaries during ‘on-the-ground’ projects.
“We focus on children, and all stakeholders involved in protecting and evolving child rights, so that children may become not only resilient, but more engaged with their communities and better enabled to realise their dreams.”
Arndt Soret, Humanium’s co-founder and CEO
Our energetic participants ranged widely, from directors to interns, and were based worldwide including in Switzerland, Australia, Sierra Leone and Haiti. Participants were able to talk to each other and make real connections, even in these turbulent times of ‘distancing’, as professionals openly shared and discussed the main challenges they had been facing since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Karen highlighted, importantly, that people are the experts of their own situations and for this reason listening to their voices, and the solutions they identify, is a key aspect of any effective humanitarian response. She went on to underline professionals’ role as facilitators – not protagonists – to beneficiary-led responses which should centre above all affected people’s voices, choices and actions. Words that the training invoked amongst those who attended included “humility”, “connection”, “participation”, “compassion” and “recognition”; in accordance with our humane rights philosophy.
Looking to the Future
Since this initial training was short and introductory, Humanium plans to address child rights technicalities in greater detail in follow-up sessions. This was a learning experience for us all and we are excited to see this innovative project off the ground. Participants provided their astute and honest feedback which will undoubtedly enable the continued improvement of our professional workshops going forward. Humanium is grateful to everybody who got involved in this new initiative. We look forward to spearheading further training, and expanding and empowering our network of compassionate individuals working to make a difference for child rights.
Humanium is excited to announce that it will offer three more Child Rights Coaching training appetizers, free of charge, if you are interested in attending please contact josie.thum@humanium.org. We hope to see you soon.
Written by Josie Thum
