(Again) Learning from Mistake

[wiwin winarni]

This is a reflection of the valuable learning from my participation as a member of the CLCP facilitator’s team conducted by the Singapore National Volunteerism and Philanthropy Center. This training was the second session. The first session was held in November 2018. Interesting learning is a flow of the facilitation process.

 

As always, the facilitation team has planned the facilitation activities for each session before we start the session.  I myself planned to facilitate dream building sessions. I like the session because from this session I usually feel the nuances of openness and togetherness between participants. This training was truly a learning session for me, considering that this training was delivered in English, the participants were professional, community builder and social change makers and the critical attitude of the participants that led me to get inspiration about language usage, urban context and Singapore social context.

When facilitating a dream building session, I was so nervous. I made a mistake! What I really appreciated and admired from our collaborative work is, Jean Louis, who was intensely involved in this facilitation process, went straight in to correct my mistakes without making me lose face and confidence to continue the session. What was even more amazing to me was that the attitudes of the participants were very positive and did not show a reaction that made me feel uncomfortable because I was not confident. Veronique was there to help and remind me to ensure that the needs of training aids could be shared with the participants well. We supported each other, work as a team and create a warm atmosphere during the facilitation process and learning process. I felt, that SALT began to find the momentum of implementation during the training, furthermore I felt that, the training was not only an information transfer event related to the approach of community life competence process (CLCP), but a real place for mutual learning from the experience of all participants. When Jean Louis said that during this training process we celebrated silence as a learning process, I personally came to realize (again) mistakes took place on the facilitation process was a learning process.

 
The second thing I was grateful for from this training process was the ownership of the participants when they gave input in the form of questions that made us change the facilitation plan. This happened during the self-assessment session. In the beginning, Sirinate who will deliver this session agreed in accordance with facilitation planning, will conduct a brainstorming in big group to come up with the practices of shared dream. After working in big group for two practices one participant raised her hand and asked, "can we do it in small groups, so that there will be more time to discuss and explore practices that might arise from the similar dream ? Other participants agreed. That's the AHA moment. Then the session was adjusted to the participants' proposals. Sessions became increasingly lively with the involvement of participants in the joy of sharing and discussions in small groups

On the one hand, I felt unsure about what happened, especially when the initial facilitation plan changed in the middle of the session. Responding to these changes, the facilitation team discussed again to conduct facilitation planning for the next session. That is, the facilitation process is thus flexible and adaptive. However, on the other hand, I was not really worried because I was with experienced facilitators, who was very sensitive to change and remained focused on positive things in every situation and change. This is one of the extraordinary and valuable training for me when I was in catching up my training outside Indonesia. Besides, I learned (again) from mistakes and adaptive learning to the input of participants to make our training in accordance with the character of the participants. They are managers who are active, professional and need innovation to continue to perform their role as community builders and social change makers.

Thanks to Sirinate for providing input and reviewed this story.

Wiwin

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Thanks for sharing your vulnerability as a facilitator. How authentic you are!

Facilitation is a hard job and therefore working in a team helps us to do and learn together. What is one thing you will do differently next time for dream building?