London Training

As I described in this post, I am now training people to facilitate my Writing Through workshops in schools and NGO’s throughout Cambodia. This past weekend, I held my first London-based training session and it was great fun. Ten of us came together in the office of Children of the Mekong, which is in the basement of their charity shop at 22 Lavender Hill, Clapham —  check it out if you’re in the neighbourhood. They have lots of great stuff! We all met there because the impetus for this session was to train the person who has been jointly hired by Writing Through and Children of the Mekong to spend three months shadowing me and running workshops for Children of the Mekong’s educational shelters throughout Cambodia. Between March and June, over 200 students and 30 Cambodian teachers will participate in week-long workshops. I’m obviously thrilled to know that so many children will benefit from the program in such an efficient way. But the fact that so many teachers will now experience a new type of teaching approach is just as important. Teacher training in Cambodia is very limited. The pedagogy tends to use outmoded techniques and only encourages the students to mimic what they hear and learn by rote. The way we teach the Writing Through workshops is as different from this as can be. I have already seen from other workshops the effect that such an experience can have on the way Cambodian teachers run their classrooms. Contributing to teacher training in Cambodia is a crucial part of the program, but is one which is easily overlooked. With this weekend’s session, Writing Through now has over 30 trained facilitators. Some of these will be heading over to SE Asia to run their workshops very soon. This is a new and important step for Writing Through, and for me. Alas, I can’t be everywhere teaching all the time. I love the fact that I’m allowing others to have that incredible experience. But the experience of letting go and allowing others to make their marks on the organisation is vital for me. It’s the only way for all of this to grow and be sustainable. There are important lessons to be learned here all around.