This year Active Citizens – a leadership programme by the British Council that promotes intercultural dialogue and social development – began its journey with 11 partner organisations in Bangladesh, among which five are new. One of the core responsibilities of the partners is to develop facilitators who play a very important role in cascading the skills to the youth community leaders through the youth leadership trainings. In order to develop a pool of facilitators, the Active Citizens team arranged a Facilitator Training programme from 8 to 12 June in Hope Foundation, Savar Dhaka.
The Facilitator Training programme involved 34 new facilitators from different parts of the country, representing different communities. During the training, they became familiar with the training module and participated in the plenary sessions led by master facilitators. The most interesting part of the training was the home group sessions where participants had to lead sessions in front of other group members and home group mentor. Feedback from the participants reflected that these sessions helped them to increase confidence and contributed to their better understanding of the content. Their efforts, hard work, willingness to learn and sleepless nights in practicing presentations reflect their commitment to a great start. Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is SUCCESS.
Shanta Maria D’costa, one of the participants, shares her experience: “I never thought that this five-day training programme would change my mind set and my view towards young people’s responsibility towards the country. I will bear the learnings from this training in my heart and will apply accordingly throughout my life.”
The Facilitator Training programme ended with the commitment of cascading the key skills to thousands of Active Citizens across the nation and to make their journey more impactful in Bangladesh. This was a step towards building societies whose young people, citizens and institutions contribute to and benefit from a more inclusive, open and prosperous world.