So as I wrote last time we did our training in Telscombe near Brighton. We actually lived like Amish for a week as we had no TV, no Internet and no phone signal so we were completely cut off from the world. But it was actually fun and quite nice to be uncontactable and not to be surrounded by technology and a constant stream of information and updates. It also meant we never lost focus of what we were training for and that we all got to know each other really well.
Day 2 - Training Week - Telscombe
So on day one of training we actually got to meet each other properly. In our little Telscombe home was Hasinah and myself, El and Lydia, Mikel and Marlon (who were amazing facilitators last year and would be teaching us all how to facilitate), Bonani, Esnart and George (the three speakers for this years tour), Anna and Lotti (from Restless Development) and Mum. Later in the week we were joined by the final two facilitators Katarina and Charli. So that is the Dance4Life family! We were in the worlds smallest hostel so it was quite an intimate way to get to know each other.
Our Hostel
The first day of training was all about HIV and Aids. It was an intensive day but so very interesting. We learnt so much and I felt well prepared to be able to talk to the young people we would be doing the workshops with. It also made us all realise just how important it is for people to be educated on the facts about HIV and Aids to be able to protect themselves and also to dispel any myths and stigmas.
Day one was also Mikel's birthday. It was great to get everyone together and celebrate and it was the first time people properly got to speak.
Marlon had arranged an amazing birthday card and cake.
Day two was all about facilitating. Marlon and Mikel did some really great games with us, including Facebook, where everyone says a status and then if you could write the same status you go towards the people in the group you think would also have that status. For example we had 'I know how to put on a condom with my mouth'. So we got to know a lot about each other in that session! It was a really fun day but we also got to learn a lot. Marlon and Mikel are amazing and made everyone really excited and comfortable about facilitating. They are also great when on stage so they really gave us something to look up to! They are both really cool guys and I think everyone joined the M & M fan club pretty quickly!
The other great thing about day 2 was learning all the routines! We had about 2 hours to learn all 5 routines and we only went through them once, but thankfully they weren't too hard. The hardest thing was getting the songs out of our head. They are very catchy but (some of them) very annoying!
Day three was all about learning the script. But first we had to sort out the schedule for the tour. The only downside of the week so far was that everyone had been given misinformation about the tour. So all of us thought that we were doing the whole two months but it turns out that there would only be 2 facilitators at a time which meant we would only be doing 2 weeks each. This caused loads of problems as everyone had turned down other work for the tour. So this took quite a long time to sort but thankfully the girls were amazing and we sorted out our schedules.
Next we needed to rehearse the script. Especially since we were just told that the next day we would be going into a school to do our first workshop. Scary! We split into our groups. In mine was Hasinah, George and myself. We renamed ourselves the Dream Team AKA the Cherios. We literally ran through it twice by ourselves and once with Marlon. Thankfully our run through with Marlon went well and I was really excited to get into the school!
Well this has been a whistle-stop tour of training week, even though it has managed to be the longest blog! Next time what happened in training when we weren't working and how the first school went!
Til then!
