Day 2 of the Summer Training Conference

Ryan Hoppie and Onika Stellingburg are Project Manager Fellows of the One World Youth Project (OWYP) team at the University of Guyana, managing the OWYP program on their campus and community.

Written By Ryan Hoppie and Onika Stellingburg

We are definitely as strong as our weakest link! It is a great experience to be a part of a network where everyone is looking out for each other. Day Two of the Summer Training Conference included activities on Hub Team Management.

Project Manager Fellows (PMFs) were given the opportunities to build leadership skills on how to effectively manage our hub teams and how to effectively communicate with the PMF and PA Networks. We also shared ideas for bonding and best practices in hubs and between hubs for success in classroom co-facilitations. We then applied the knowledge and skills to real life problems that we might encounter when we return to our respective countries.

As PMFs, we are given an opportunity to share our views on leadership with the other PMFs. We silently arranged objects to abstractly represent leadership, and seeing the arrangements of our colleagues helped us realize that objects (and multimedia content) are powerful tools that can be used in communicating messages and perspectives. Through similar interactive exercises, we also covered topics such as community building and accountability.

It was expected and seen that by the afternoon we had all formed meaningful bonds with each other. All the activities done today gave us a chance to work with each PMF from all of the other countries thereby facilitating cross-cultural exchanges even within the workshops, which made the learning process fun and interactive.

On a lighter side, the neighborhood sheep of the area have been a feature in our day and everyone looks forward to seeing them walk past at the end of the day. We are keeping an active mind and body during free time, which is why we climbed the beautiful mountains of Roguva Valley. Some PMF’s even interacted with some of the local Kosovar children who took them on an impromptu ‘guided’ tour of the area immediately surrounding the hotel.

At the end of the day, we were able to share an artifact from our countries. This activity was the most dynamic event thus far; it exposed emotions, hurts, aspirations, dreams and goals of everyone here. We saw, felt and tasted the world through the generosity of everyone who shared their artifacts with the entire group. It gave every other person an opportunity to take a glance into the private lives of everyone and helped us understand more about each other’s culture and what has made them.

This helped to strengthen relationships among the OWYP staff and PMF network while promoting the goal of connecting, essentially fulfilling the mandate of OWYP: If you’re not connecting, you’re not doing One World Youth Project. Some of us came representing one or two cultures but now we embody several. One World Youth Project is what it is because we encompass and represent the entire world.