Today was the first day of a two day training with Patricio, a facilitator/expert with the A Ganar program, which he implements in Ecuador, and which he introduces in countries throughout Latin America.
It was an intensely inspiring training, and I left with very conflicting feelings: I can NOT wait to start implementing and become a part of the magic of youth empowerment, but at the same time I came to realize more clearly (though I had already been suspecting this) that we are not ready to begin, and that in order to do the program & the youth participants justice, we must do it WELL. And that means squaring certain specifics away before we start training kids.
The training was a perfect example of A Ganar, with some of the day spent in a classroom, and some spent on the soccer "field" (made of concrete, it is hard for me to call it a field). We went through some of the activities that we will be using to teach the 6 core competencies/values/skills of the first phase - the social/personal growth empowerment phase.
The field exercises were really fun & funny, and very practical as well. I see the reason behind the A Ganar methodology already. Here are some photos of field activities!!
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| Ferney, Amalia, Norma, William, Jesus |
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| Nora, not sure, Jorge, not sure, Cesar! |
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| Rule: never let go of your partner's hand... gets pretty sweaty. |
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Cesar, strategizing big time with me. At one point I forgot that my partner was wearing high heels, and took off after the ball with her, poor lady....
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| Another activity. It is much harder to play soccer with hands behind your back than you would think. |
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| Hardest activity of the day. Communication. Hmmm. |
After the training, we dropped Patricio off at the hotel to shower, swung by the office (which ended up taking more than an hour), heading home for a race-shower, and then picked Patricio up again for dinner & a Deportes Tolima game. We ate arepas rellenas, cornmeal 'bun' type things that are divine, filled with meats of all kinds. Tonight's arepas were also toasted after being filled, giving them a nice crusty exterior. YUM. (Minus the meat interior)
The game was local, so way less intense than the South American cup game I attended a few weeks back, but again we won. It was a fun night! Here is a picture of my Ibaguereño family!
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| Armando, me, Amalia |
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| A Ganar folks (Ferney, me, Patricio, & Amalia) + a random passerby |
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