I choose my own reality: and who do you dare to be?

In January we have received an e-mail from Kathrin, looking for partners for a training called The Arc which would take place in Las Palmas during summer. The e-mail offered an amazing opportunity to unleash all of our potential which has never been expected and to have the possibility to organise much inspirational and much more impactful projects. However, it has never been expected to serve as really special tool for the Comité Directeur: we were trained like never before on how to have real impact in what we do and how to personally push ourselves to our very limits.

I cannot describe The Arc otherwise than the most special experience in my life. This one week-long training was not only unique in the sense that it was “mixed training and coaching course with 30% being training and 70% being individual and peer-to-peer coaching”, but also for being a perfect opportunity to get to know my team colleagues as well as other youth activists in situations where they were outside of their comfort zone, really struggling and with pressure on them.

All the sessions were extremely interactive and demanding  from the very beginning, the participants became trainers. From the very first day we were pushed out of our comfort zones and challenged with every exercise we did. It was tough at some times, but very rewarding in the end. We inspired each other, we got inspired by each other’s lifestory and by all the successful and amazing projects, as well as the knowledge which trainers provided us on Impact Measurement of the Youth sector in society, which have proved that there is still a lot of room to make this world a better place, but a lot of young people are already on the right path to leave mark in the world and they can say by the end: “I was here”.

We were warned before: you are going to cry. And yes, we cried. Cried out of sadness, happiness, cried because we learnt so many, sometimes deeply hidden, surprising, special things of ourselves and of the others we are going to work with for the whole year. It could have never been better than this and we can be just sincerely grateful to Kathrin, Lucille and Luis for this experience.

We also really appreciate our amazing trainers‘ who were able to provide us with a very intense and enriching experience:

Astrid Schrader (Youth Delegate to the United Nations, Ashoka, AEGEE-Academy Management Consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Berlin)

Arne Reis (AEGEE-Academy, YOUrope needs YOU, German Telekom)

Alex Anton (Travel to Lead, Harvard University, Latin America Conference Leadership, IMPACTfactors Consulting, Consultant at McKenzy)

Magdalena Musiala (CivicLab, Camp Rising Sun Europe in Denmark, Team Leader at the The King’s Leadership Foundation of Sweden and many others)

We had the opportunity to share this event with amazing participants from many different organisations in Europe. Find out more about the Arc Training at: http://thearctraining.org/about/

Written by Beata Matuszka, Network and Human Resources Director (Comité Directeur 2012-2013)