Testimony: Training course about Emergency Pedagogy by Ana

I  have worked with asylum seekers for almost 2 years, so I was really excited when I started this training "From crisis to chance" but I didn't have any idea  that it would be so good.

Every day we started with the Morning Circle. This way of starting the day reminded us that we were a group. Bernd Ruf, the founder of Emergency Pedagogy, taught us the importance of the feeling of belonging for  children that lived though a potentially traumatic situation.

For us, the trainees, who didn't know each other, and spent one week together, belonging was a really important feeling for us too. One week later, we had come to know each other and we already knew which role each person would play in our group.

The main goal of  Emergency Pedagogy is to work with children that had lived through a potentially traumatic situation. For Bernd Ruf, trauma is a wound in a soul, that's why it is so important take care of that wound as soon as possible. Otherwise, the wound will become an illness. This concept was really inspiring and motivating to our work. It's hard work and this training was good to us to share our difficulties and our strategies to overtake the frustration. We experienced different strategies to express our feelings trough  art, like painting, music, dancing,  rythm games and clay modeling. We never should force children to speak but they need express their feeling, it’s helpful.

All the concepts and the theorietal and practical knowledge was very interesting and I believe I became a better socialworker. But I would also recognize the importance of the personal skills acquired. We talked about our customs, our food and political and social questions.

So I would like to congratulate the organisers of this kind of event that promote our professional networking. I would really like to thank you for organizin Spin for all dedication. The training was really organised and I feel that Spin respects people’s time, prizes and encourages knownledge sharing, and that’s really positive.

From Portugal,
Ana Vieira