It has been a busy few days for the candidates here in Nungwi. There have been numerous appearances of dogs in wigs (don’t ask), and a wide variety of African clapping games – it seems every country has their own particular rhythm and style.
These last couple of days have focussed very much around training, assessing, and feedback skills. Always an interesting topic to deliver, particularly with such a wide variety of experience & knowledge within the room – and indeed, it was interesting this time as well.
It is challenging to strike a balance between being simple enough to understand in a foreign language, being applicable in their local context – but not “dumbing down” or “cutting corners”. Deciding which parts of the typical UK training to leave out is not easy. However, JP has done an excellent job so far, with his energetic & passionate delivery style.
For me (Dan), the most useful part of the programme is the break times and meal times where I get the opportunity to discuss informally with the candidates their thoughts on the training they have just received – a “hot debrief” (without actually calling it that). Overwhelmingly, the candidates are enjoying the programme, and they feel that they are learning a lot – taking value from many different parts of the programme.
The mood within the programme seems to have shifted slightly. I had some interesting conversations with some guys over dinner last night. For the first couple of nights – people were discussing the problems that they had with running lifesaving programmes in their country. Today, it seemed that the theme was much more focused around how they could take the learning back to their home countries – and how they could find ways to implement the programme.
It feels like there are lots of people now with pent-up balls of energy inside them… that are only going to grow and grow over the next week or so….
Hopefully, they will take that energy – and become the Future Leaders of lifesaving in their country… and Africa.