Creative Facilitation Methodologies Workshop

This one day workshop will introduce participants to a range of experiential facilitation methodologies. We will engage learners in the practice and use of action and reflection tools, which can be used with individuals as well as groups.

Workshop objectives/rationale include:

• To introduce experienced facilitators to a range of experiential, interactive, creative methodologies that can be used in the facilitation of learning processes, and which can be adapted to whatever content is being worked with.
• To make our experience in working with creative methods accessible as a tool-kit for experienced facilitators to utilize, experiment with and to make their own.
• To engage our learners through creative adult learning methods which strengthen the use of the heart, body and intuition as resources within the learning and development process and offer a range of tools for engagement.
• To teach facilitators how to create an enabling environment for learner/staff growth and transformation through creative, engaging learning methodologies.

Targeted participants

NGOs or individuals that facilitate learning processes, or that would like to learn more about how to facilitate learning processes with their beneficiaries, staff and volunteers. The workshop participants should include the persons within the organization most responsible for training, mentoring and coaching, human resources and skills development.

YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT! DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS FRIDAY 6 MAY

To register, please email the completed registration form to Henriette.

Thinking out of the box

In this workshop we will use creative facilitation methodologies to engage and spark participants to think ‘out of the box,’ helping them to make connections in unusual, unexpected ways. These facilitation methodologies invite participants to engage with defining the right questions, rather than the ‘right’ answers.

An underlying premise is that there is more than one possible outcome to a process of learning and inquiry. Creative methodologies invite a process of deep questioning to take place. They invite curiosity to be present in the way we go about exploring the territory involved, and they challenge the idea of pre-packaged conclusions. They invite us to be completely present, allowing the mind, body, heart and intuition to play a role in how we create meaning and come up with workable strategies for the challenges we are exploring. So, this means bringing the whole self into the learning process, and strengthening our capacity to access these parts of ourselves as resources when making decisions and solving problems.

Exploring narrative threads

We work with reflection practices and conversation tools which enable us to track our own learning experiences as individuals, and which enable us to become more attuned to learning processes of others within a group. Our aim here is to enable individuals and the group to explore the narrative threads of their experience, to express their own experience and to actively listen to others sharing theirs.

Social activism methods

We draw from the work of South American Augusto Boal. We work with Image theatre, and explore several different ways of working with individuals and groups. We also share approaches for gaining access to the information that the images hold. We work with the concepts of intention, impact and perception.

Tired of the ice-breaker concept that many learners dread? We work with a framework for viewing the use of games, ice-breakers, energizers and activities so that they add strategic value to the learning process and the participants’ level of engagement.

Learn through doing

We work in Action-Reflection cycles, so you can expect to learn through doing. We tend to work with short bits of input, focusing on engagement through individual and group activities and exercises and then creating space in different creative ways to reflect and use different conversation tools so as to ensure we learn from each other’s experiences and contexts. This is also why we ask you to wear comfortable clothing and shoes that you can easily move around in. We use an online facilitation approach when working with other facilitators, so that learners can see and hear what we are learning and how we are communicating as facilitators as we work. We won’t work with a traditional workshop agenda, but will share a broad roadmap on the day, which may then be subject to change, depending on where the interest and energy of the participants lies.

What to bring

There won’t be any PowerPoint slides or presentations. There may be a few hand-outs, but please bring along a journal or notebook and a pen so that you can make your own notes from what you learn as you work with others.

Cost: R850 per person covers venue, catering and presenters.

Comments from previous participants of our two day Facilitator Training called The Creative Facilitator’s Toolkit:

• “Extremely valuable. Gave me knowledge on so many different levels. Every part contributed in some way to my learning.” Rosa Cilliers-Change Management Consultant
• “Amazing, deep. wow…this is not one of the conventional facilitator’s workshops. It goes very deep, also allowing engagement with oneself. I LOVE the tools”. L. Muzondo-Corporate facilitator
• “Extremely valuable, practical, workable and mind -blowing”. Dr.Babita Mathur-Helm: University of Stellenbosch Business School

Activation Hub

We design and facilitate customized learning interventions for groups and organisations. We favour an experiential approach and specialize in the use of creative and systemic methodologies that cultivate curiosity and fresh eyed thinking. Clients include Engen, Metropolitan, UCT Graduate School of Business, Sanlam, Old Mutual, BMW, Allan Gray, Sacema.

Lecturers: Di Koch and Eugenie Grobler (Activation Hub)

Activation Hub Partners Di Koch and Eugenie Grobler each bring over 20 years of experience in adult and organisational learning within a wide range of contexts, including Corporate, Government, NGO, Community Development, Prisons and Tertiary Education. They have been working together since 2008 and founded Activation Hub in September 2010 with the launch of their public facilitator training programme, The Creative Facilitator’s Toolkit. They have been working together since then bringing innovative learning approaches into organizational contexts. They share a passion for systemic approaches and creative methodologies that utilize the mind (IQ), heart (EQ) and body as resources to meet the emerging future.

Sustainable Development Network

The Sustainable Development Network (SDN) is an international NGO registered in South Africa (NPC: K2011/122880/08) and in the US (501c3 Number: 3388896). The SDN’s mission is to empower NGOs, government and communities through research, education, training and through encouraging networks and partnerships that will promote sustainable solutions. The SDN’s vision is to empower NGOs, government and communities to work together toward more sustainable economic, environmental and social solutions.

Lisa Thompson-Smeddle, Founder/Director of the SDN has over 25 years’ experience working in the NGO sector in South Africa. She has completed an Honours degree in Social Sciences at Chapman University in California, and both Honours and Master’s degrees in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University. She is the Director of the USA and RSA registered NGO called the Sustainable Development Network.

She has acted as a sustainability consultant to Family Health International, an Umbrella Grants Mechanism managing a $90million USAID/PEPFAR grant in South Africa. Her role was to build capacity in PEPFAR funded NGOs. This included the development of sustainability strategies, organisational policies, effective financial, monitoring evaluation and reporting systems and more. Lisa was also a Programme Coordinator for the Sustainability Institute and course designer/lecturer at Stellenbosch University, she has managed infrastructure development and infrastructure research projects for the UNDP, DANIDA, Cordaid, the City of Cape Town, the University of California Berkeley and other academic institutions and donor organisations. She was the fund development manager for Peace Parks Foundation, an NGO established by Nelson Mandela, Dr. Anton Rupert and Prince Barnard of the Netherlands.

NB: This workshop can accommodate a maximum of 50 participants so please book early!

Wear comfortable clothes and bring a journal and pen.

Directions:

FROM CAPE TOWN/AIRPORT

Take the N2 to the Baden Powell exit. Left at the exit. After about 8km go straight through the robot (Total Garage on your left). Pass Spier, go over the railway bridge. Vredenheim Estate is a bit further up on your right (there are game animals in pastures in front of the estate). Turn into Vredenheim, cross over the railway line, turn left at the T and right into the Barrique parking.

FROM STELLENBOSCH

Take the R310 from Stellenbosch (toward Spier). At the robot (Asara and Neetlingshof on your right, Polkadraai road carries on straight) turn left. Vredenheim Estate is a few hundred metres further, on your left (there are game animals in pastures in front of the estate). Turn into Vredenheim, cross over the railway line, turn left at the T and right into the Barrique parking.