Empowered by the Training of Trainers, Thailand

“When I first joined a Gaia Education EDE hosted by NextGenOA it changed my life. Taking the Training of Trainers in Thailand was the next step for me as I wanted to strengthen my skills in becoming a qualified project leader. The course demonstrates distinctly what is participatory learning; the content is rich and the learning process fluid. What impressed me the most was the talent of the facilitators to get participants to understand and practice Meta-Skills such as compassion. The class was full of wisdom and authentic stories. It provided a safe container that allowed me to be vulnerable and actually helped me to resource my own confidence. It was a deep and joyful experience to share activities with the other students from so many walks of life.

During the last three days of the five-week ToT, we joined the SDG Training for Multipliers. I was truly impressed by how much I learnt in these three days. It taught me more than expected, and framed my project ‘Green Lady’ in the context of the Global Goals.”

“Since 2016 Green Lady has been promoting healthy menstruation for women in Cambodia and Vietnam. We provide menstruation education, raise awareness of social attitudes towards periods and the environment and train local educators. Our goal is to empower women by teaching them to understand the natural processes of their bodies and how menstruation works, not to suffer from it. It is their right to know this and to see menstruation in a positive way. We also want to stop the use of plastic sanitary pads while promoting cotton options.

Deep and active listening and mindfulness practices learnt during the ToT have empowered me to balance leadership and participation and to be comfortable with divergent and convergent knowledge. I cannot thank the facilitators and participants enough for everything they brought, their stories being so real and powerful. I left the training with enhanced trust, joy, peace and hope.”