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

Testimony: Training course about Emergency Pedagogy by Maša

I first heard about this training course, when my Slovenian colleague send me a Call for partners from SPIN organization with a caption reading ''From crisis to chance'' – training course on emergency pedagogy''. She was ecstatic about this opportunity and her excitement transferred onto me. We soon started writing partnership proposal, asking our Slovenian organisation to back us up.

We're both personally and professionally connected to the field of pedagogy, but we never had any official training related to emergency pedagogy. Naturally, the title sparked interest, since growing our field of knowledge is one of the top priorities. Hearing about it straight form the horse's mouth, the founder of this field – Bernd Ruf – was like a cherry on top of the whole training.

What it did for me, personally, was changing my perspective of trauma and how to work with it. In the beginning, it was hard to follow the process of singing weird songs and simultaneously clapping to the rhythm. Why are we doing this? I look silly, it all looks a bit silly. We were thrown into the water – into the methodology, and for a first timer it didn't make sense. What then happened during the process of reaching the end of the training course, was that an understanding of why-the-weird-songs-etc. started to appear. I'm still way too inexperienced to feel confident using the principles we've learned in my professional life. This requires a lot more reading and a lot more experiencing and a lot more understanding. But what I'm very glad about, is that this training course gave me invaluable insights, a whole suitcase of new methods and motivation to dig deeper and explore emergency pedagogy even further.

Maša V.

Testimony: Training course about Emergency Pedagogy by Stamatina

When I first saw the announcement for a training course on Emergency Pedagogy in Lisbon, I was more than excited as it combined everything that I had in mind by that time. Therefore, I was really thankful that I got accepted. The experience that I gained from the training, made me fall in love with my profession and with the great city of Lisbon even more!

I remember the first time that I set my foot in Spin Hostel and the warm atmosphere that the volunteers and youth workers had achieved to create. I quickly felt at ease with the fellow workers and the care that Spin Association put into organizing the cause of Emergency Pedagogy made this week possible for  26 participants.

This training course was organized mainly into two parts: the seminars held by Bernd Ruf and the workshops. Bernd Ruf’s work was admirable as he transferred to us years of experience and knowledge on the field of children’s psychology and taught us the foundations of Emergency and Trauma Pedagogy. We learned about the different types of traumas, the symptoms of stress reaction and the therapeutic interventions. What made an impact on me was how the trauma can make a child feel detached from its own body and the fact that in many occasions the child after a natural disaster, a state of war or an abuse may not feel some parts of its body. This shocking experience can interrupt the unity of the body and the soul and cause a feeling of imbalance. For that reason, from the two workshops, we learned the importance of promoting rhythmic movement and artistic expression that helped the children stay focused on the moment and activate their body movements. Through my experience from working with clay and drawing, I understood that many times unconsciously the body “remembers” without even the necessity of words. All of the exercises functioned therapeutically and brought us closer as a team. The visit in Crescer Association and the stories of young refugees were aspiring and showed us how solidarity can change a person’s life and how strong the human spirit can be.

Last but not least, the conversations that I had with the youth workers affected me and made me reconsider my professional career while raising ever more my love for children and my will to help as a psychotherapist. All of the volunteers and employees showed true affection for their job and made me believe that a better future is possible. I will close this article with a saying by Bernd Ruf: “You cannot do nothing without LOVE”. It is known for years but we tend to forget.

Muito obrigada! Vejo -vos em breve, meus amigos!

Matina Kalafateli

Testimony: Training course about Emergency Pedagogy by Gina

Emergency pedagogy is an emergent topic that needs to gain more attention. During the introductory training course on this subject, I have learned the theoretical basics of this practice and I have experienced how powerful and effective the methods of emergency pedagogy are during the practical workshops-which I need to confess that I liked most.

What I think is important to notice first is how emergency pedagogy started. The trigger for this was the keen observation of its founder, Bernd Ruf, who saw that during the aftermath of a natural or human-made disaster, only the wounded children were receiving attention and necessary help, while the rest, which had no external injuries, were left to deal with their internal injuries. And exactly this is the place and the moment where emergency pedagogy becomes crucial: in the very first days after a disaster took place, when most of the children are inert, in shock. Some of them may have no expression, some may have lost everything, and some might tell a story where they needed to get out from a stack of dead bodies.

It is not difficult to imagine that some of them will remain traumatized after these horrific events if they don’t receive the necessary help and guidance to cope with these traumatic situations. So in order to help them, there are emergency pedagogy intervention teams, that once arrived at the disaster place, apply different kinds of methods based on movement, singing, drawing or clay modeling in order to help the children and also adults to release their physical and psychological ‘cramp’. The best way to describe how emergency pedagogy works is to think of a wound- which represents the trauma, that needs to be protected in order to prevent it from getting infected (which would represent a disorder). So in the same way that first medical aid is provided by putting a plaster on a physical wound, emergency pedagogy is protecting the inner wound, by sustain its healing process.

Another aspect that I found important is the classification of traumas and also the statistics about how people recover from the different types of traumas. Most interesting I found the information that up to 80% out of the traumatized children recover from their trauma within 6 months, if the trauma was caused by a natural disaster. Which means that we have the ability within us to recover from a natural disaster and the only thing that we can do to help the traumatized children is to trigger their self-healing capacity. But while we are structured to cope and overcome the traumas produced by natural disasters, or we could say, disasters produced by an ‘’invisible hand’, we are no so good in coping with what is called a ‘relationship trauma’- where a real, closed person is the cause of the trauma.

It was extremely helpful for me to understand how a relationship trauma reflects itself in the behavior of traumatized children and adults, how a trauma is changing the functions of our brain and how the relationship trauma is the one that is the most difficult to heal. I think it is extremely important that people become more aware about the effects and symptoms of this type of trauma and in this way, it should become less taboo to speak about it, especially for the victims. It is also important that victims know that they can be helped through various methods and that it is almost necessary to search for specialized help. Another concept that we could focus on is posttraumatic growth, through which victims get stronger after dealing with their trauma.

As a conclusion, participating to this training course was one of the most interesting experiences I have had. What impressed me most besides everything that I have learned was the flow and the good vibe of our group. I think the whole atmosphere was amazing. So it was normal that the first days after my return where quite difficult, but luckily I could quickly ask the children from my classroom to play with me a ‘Tipi -Tipi, Tapa -Tapa, Topo -Topo’ song and everything came back to ‘normal’ again. Not only that I am using with them many of the exercises that I’ve learned during the practical workshops, but I’m also aiming to make other educators and parents more aware about the importance emergency pedagogy and the benefits of using these kind of therapeutically methods.

Testimony: Emergency Pedagogy Training Course in Lisbon by Marta

“Morning has come, night is away, rise with the sun, welcome the day”

What a hopeful message for everyday life! And what a wonderful image to bring to someone emotionally wounded… That was the way we started our day at the Emergency Pedagogy (E.P.) training course, by singing to this song in the morning while moving to warm up and get ready for the seminar.

When I first heard Bernd Ruf on a seminar about Emergency Pedagogy, a few years ago, it totally resonated with me, and I was sure I wanted to know more about it. Luckily enough, it was possible to do it this year, this time at a deeper level.

Through this course, I was able to:
- recall the process of trauma
- understand how the emergency intervention can be effective after the very first weeks after the traumatic event
- learn the specific methods used by E.P. (I tried them myself during the practical lessons)
- learn the school curriculum and its different levels of therapy (from the music and arts to the body care, nutrition, storytelling, gardening activities and even the architecture of the surrounding buildings)
- get some tips on the mental hygiene a carer/educator can have.

It was an intensive week, full of valuable information and impressions that are still reverberating inside me. I could address two different aspects of this training course: the seminar itself, and the cultural approach.

Concerning the seminar itself, one of the most interesting things I realize was that emergency
pedagogy works especially during the 8 weeks after trauma. This could explain why it is so hard for
me, as a kindergarten teacher, to help my children dealing with their own troubles. In one hand, I do
not actually know their real traumas because it is not something obvious (like a child who would witness war or a tsunami, for instance). On the other hand, even if I would know something really terrible, I would be working at a long term after- trauma period, which would be less effective since it
would be turned into a disorder.

Another very interesting discovery for me was that although E.P. is based on Waldorf Education, there is no need to advocate it. Having Waldorf education as a background myself, it was somehow easy for me to connect to the methods presented, but I was very willing and curious to try a different perspective, as if I would not know anything about it. As a consequence, I found out that this whole experience allowed me to get some fresh air on Waldorf education and to reconnect to the Steiner philosophy again – like I would recall inside me why I fell in love with it long time ago, so to speak. A third impression that meant a lot for me was to observe very clearly the individual approach of each of us during the arts classes. It surprised me to see the amazingly different drawings/paintings /sculptures that resulted at the end of the class!

Concerning the cultural aspect, it amused me a lot spending time among European mates, observing different backgrounds and different ways of dealing with work/time/subjects/politics and even the gastronomy. And to observe some stereotypes (including myself)! It really sparkled me joy. In another level of the emotional spectrum, the testimony of Ahmad (the Syrian youngman who shared his own experience as a refugee) was a strong moment for me that surely brought me awareness of my own intolerance. 

To sum up, for me this training course was a really good experience, with a great organization and structure. The team behind it is itself an inspiration, since they were very well articulated altogether, and they are clearly tough workers! 

Testimony: Emergency Pedagogy Training Course in Lisbon by Jesús

Dear reader ... I write this letter with great enthusiasm and affection since this course was one of the best experiences at a pedagogical level that I never had.

Everything from the internal organization of the spin association to the organization of the course did a wonderful job, from the methodology and scientific rigor, but also from the heart, which was evident in each of the actions that took place during that course. Going into the most specific part, I would like to highlight different aspects of the developed and how.

The structure of the course, from my point of view, was perfect. Having a first theoretical view of the subject to be addressed is also facilitated by a person with so much knowledge in the field and so easy to transmit knowledge and feelings (even through a language unknown to most participants), got close to a very clear way to the world of emergency pedagogy.

Through these theoretical lessons I was able to learn much more about how a person's mind (and especially children's) works in a moment of shock and in the trauma that it usually leaves afterwards. Not only at the physiognomic level but also at the psychological and social level. In the same way I could feel how important is the work of the pedagogue at this time, not only in the direct intervention in the place where the tragedy occurs but in the subsequent monitoring and of course also in the places of reception in the case of refugees .

The perfect complement to all this theoretical information received in the first two hours of the morning, put the practical activities, where we clearly experience what can take place in the process of management and help of the traumatized person through tools such as activity physical, the game, the rhythm, the routines, the art ... were sensations and wonderful experiences that those days happened.

The day did not end there, and usually in the afternoons, super interesting activities took place both inside and outside the center; visits to oenegés, places of interest in the host city, "networking" with the rest of the classmates, etc. In these actions I had the opportunity to know much more about aspects that I did not know before, such as the situation of immigrants and especially refugees both before and during and after leaving the country. I spoke with several people who, with an open heart, gave me very moving testimonies about everything they had to go through until they reached Europe.

In the same way, I was able to share with my class colleagues very interesting aspects of their work in their organizations of origin, their work and life styles, as well as cultural aspects of their countries. Of all this, besides the magnificent personal experience that I took, I was able to nurture myself of numerous and excellent tools to be able to put into practice in the future.

By Jesús

Training course about Emergency Pedagogy - Spanish team testimony

Being able to participate in the Training Course "From crisis to chance" in the city of Lisbon was a great experience, both personally and professionally. During this period we had the opportunity to collaborate, learn, enjoy and experiment with altruistic and good-hearted people. Each of the people attending this project contributed with their experience, knowledge and enthusiasm, making it very special.

There were three open-minded participants per country, who all wanted to make this world a better place, who fight for injustice and dedicate their time to improve the lives of those around them. Each one of the participants was open to new methodologies and action guidelines to know how to react to any situation of "trauma", trying to understand the whole process and acquiring all the necessary notions to react to any crisis situation.

In this training course we learnt a lot of theory about how trauma works and how we can help prevent it and heal it. We had several conferences by very knowledgeable professionals, in which we learnt about psycho-traumatology, psychohigiene, therapeutical methods... We also had a very interesting cineforum, in which we saw a documentary about the work of these professionals in natural disasters. Without a doubt, these theoretical workshops were incredibly useful for our future, and it was really interesting to learn about these concepts and theories in a dynamic way. 

However, it was the ability to put it into practice that we appreciated the most. We personally participated in artistic workshops which are useful to implement with people in contexts of trauma. For example, we created figures with clay, we painted a mural, we sang songs, we played different rhythms… All these workshops were very inspiring and made us grow in a personal way, teaching us methods to use with children and youngsters.

Finally, we would like to thank both Associação Spin and Asociación Mundus for the opportunity to continue our training as educators, teachers and social workers, since we are convinced that this type of learning contributes to the fact that tomorrow we can exercise youth work with greater quality.

Testimony on Emergency Pedagogy Training Course in Lisbon

01.06.2019

When I woke up after my nightshift in the hospital, I saw an announcement for a trainingcourse on the topic “Emergency Pedagogy”. All and sudden, I was completely awake.

This was something I wanted to participate in for a long time. As I already knew the organisation “Friends of Waldorf Education”, I was even more interested. And so I applied. And luckily I got accepted to learn a lot about trauma, crisis situations and Traumatology as well as Emergency Pedagogy.

Every morning in Lisbon, as a beginning of the day, we stood together in the Morning Circle and played fingergames, sang, spoke a poem and started the day as one group. As I would learn later, this helps a lot to bring groups together, to identify as a group, everyone does the same, no matter where you come from, how smart you are or what language you speak. This might be very helpful in my work as a pediatric nurse in a mental healthcare hospital as well, because I often need to bring groups together, the youngsters and children have special life situations and often feel, they need to prove who they are. 

My favorite part of the training course were the speeches, held by Bernd Ruf, the founder of Emergency Pedagogy, who described the term Trauma as a wound of the soul. And also these wounds need first aid in a crisis situation. This is a “picture” that lasted in my mind for a long time. If the soul, that kind of connects the body, is hurt, how could children live a normal life when the balance between physical body and soul is disrupted? Back at work in the hospital, I looked even more differently at the children and youngsters. I know their past, but do I know where and how badly their souls got hurt?

What also surprised me is, that the “outcome” of the therapeutic intervention of trauma, is very different according to the childs protective- and risk factors. And this often has to do with social-economical factors and is about how the child was raised. How old is the child? What has he or she already experienced in life? How do the parents deal with the situation? So one could say, that the basis to overcome trauma is already different from child to child.

During my work as a pediatric nurse in the mental health care hospital, I work with many different disorders and clusters of symptomps; for me it was very interesting, that Bernd Ruf told us, that often after a trauma the biography of the affected child is kind of disrupted and the child might, as a result, behave auto-aggressive, suicidal or aggressive towards their environment. So I began to look at the behavior of my patients during a normal day on our ward – how were their reactions, how do they feel in the group, how were they able to endure their own disorders and the daily life with it.

As a result of our training course I learned that in our work, we need to include all senses to achieve balance physically, morally and with the soul. And I really think, that we experienced that in the training course as well by singing, painting, working with clay, by the physical exercises and listening to each other. If we train the outer balance, we are able to influence the inner balance. I want to create a safe place for my patients, a place where they can turn their life experience, that might content a traumatic event in the past, into a chance.

And by that chance, change their lives into something they feel safe within. Their own body and mind.

By Julia Neitzke

Letter to my friend - Training course about Emergency Pedagogy

My dear friend,

I’m writing you from Lisbon, more specifically from Bairro Padre Cruz, in Carnide, where I have just finished a training course on humanitarian action, on giving and receiving it, a course which really changed me inwardly and made me a better person.

Have you ever heard about Emergency Pedagogy? It was born in Germany in 2006, when its founder, Mr. Bernd Ruf (Waldorf teacher), had to follow the repatriation of 21 young Lebanese who were in Germany at that time. Lebanon lived in a war scenario provoked by the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, but the children's parents asked to bring them back home. In order to do it, a rigorous planning of his repatriation was made so that everything was carried out with security. It was this scenario that impelled Bern Ruf to create the Emergency Pedagogy.

Let me explain to you shortly what is it about. The main goal of this pedagogy is to act in situations of war and natural disasters by assisting emotionally injured children and youngsters to regain confidence in themselves, in other people, and in the world. The activities proposed are based on arts, music and rhythm games, inspired on Waldorf pedagogy, allowing the children to express themselves without being forced to speak. But the work also applies to the realities of countries affected by other types of situations. Imagine the situation we had two years ago with the forest fires that devastated the country. Hundreds of affected people needed urgent support in processing their experiences and memories ... Victims of emotional trauma are often (even more so in war scenarios) left behind, and this can have serious consequences. We don’t think a lot about these subjects because they seemed really distant, but they must be thought and discussed. We must prepare ourselves to act in these situations and provide help. We can think in concrete examples: thousands of refugees are arriving European countries in large numbers and we cannot even imagine the situations they had to deal with (not only in the past) to be here now. They don’t come with external wounds that require medical intervention, but what about the emotional wounds they carry inside? Who treats them? Who cares about?

During these eight days, that's what I did - thinking and studying trauma and soul wounds. I and another twenty-nine teachers, educators, social workers, psychologists, musicians, artists, translators... Each one from a different reality and a different context. Some came from Germany, Italy, Greece, or even from Romania, Spain, and Norway. What brought us together was much more than the fact that we all work with populations with a traumatic biographical history: migrants, refugees, homeless, or others. What brought us together was the conviction that a deeper awareness of a problem can help to overcome it. What brought us together was the confidence that the experiences exchange makes us richer and that at the end of this training course we can act more consciously and with more professionalism. The training course brought us together with the theoretical knowledge that we received directly from the founder of the pedagogy and the feelings promoted by the trainers who accompanied him and shared with us the long experience in this field. And, at the end of these days, at the end of more than 192 hours spent with these people, I can tell you, my dear friend, that we are joined by bonds of friendship that we will bring to life. Despite the hardness of the theme, I keep the sweet memory of the calm and warm voice of Julia Neitzke, (one of the German colleagues) with a song that does not stop in my head and stubbornly comes out of my lips:

Building bridges between our divisions, 

I reach out to you, will you reach out to me? 

With all of our voices and all of our visions, 

Friends, we could make such sweet harmony. 

A song that can bring serenity to the chaos. I hope to meet you soon to sing it for you too. With love, P.S.: I'll tell you about Ehmed too, and the other Syrian refugees that I met. Ahmed was part of the Portuguese team and shared with us his experience as a refugee living in Portugal. Another strong testimony about his difficult journey from Syria to Portugal, a beautiful history about resilience and strength that made me grow.

By Luciana Joana

Training course on Emergency Pedagogy – a personal testimony

From crisis to chance, from Germany to Portugal, from anticipation to a great experience – that was my way to a week full of inspirations with a great community and a lot of learning! We started our week with a "Welcoming Aperitivo" in the first evening to get to know each other, to figure out from which of the eight countries we all came from and, even more important, what was our motivation to join this training course!

Moreover we got a short and interesting insight how the hosting organisation "SPIN" was established in "Bairro Padre Cruz", a suburb of Lisbon: an old, destructed primary school became a "social hostel" by the long and hard effort of lots of volunteers! A great community work, that ended up in a center for intercultural exchanges, training courses, study visits or for other social and educational  international activities!

Study visit of a local social organisation

As it used to be every day, we started the first morning with a morning circle. It had the impact to really get awake and to focuse the day and following activities. Specially one important phrase we did each morning I kept in mind: "The high sky above me, the firmed earth below me, the good spirit within me." - and actually it already was an important ritual of workers of "emergency pedagogy", the main topic oft he training course. This phrase is a  method to get grounded and to regain the control about the own body after a traumatic event.

This is only one example for a practical exercise of emergency pedagogy we learnt. We had a lot of workshops regarding arts and movement. I was wondering about drawings of traumatised children, in which the houses weren´t grounded anymore! They were kind of "flying" in the mid of the picture and only sometimes there was at least a leader to reach the ground from the house. These children had lost all there constancy in their lifes because of traumatic events and for example with restructered days, joyful moments, movements (e.g. playing with a ball in a special model or finger plays), music (e.g. singing together) and other kinds of arts (e.g. modelling, drawing) it´s possible to help most of them at least to get out of their first shock!

Ending: Opening of flowers
of wishes

In the everyday lessons of the founder of emergency pedagogy Bernd Ruf, we learned many theoretical backgrounds of what happens physically and psychologically after having experienced a traumatic event (such as nature catastrophies, war or severe illnesses) and how to overcome the state of shock. The key point is to rebuild the feeling of safety and to restructure the confused inner and external rhythms that got confused or even lost. A personal highlight for me was the visit of an other local social organisation of Lisbon which is engaged in youngster´s social inclusion and the personal interchange with refugees! Once more I deeply understood how important it is to be open to interact, work and share life with people of other countries and/or cultures and to help people in need! Of course this intercultural interchange took place among us as participants of the training course as well and I really enjoyed it! We discussed about political situations of our home country, issues in society and similarities and differences regarding our personal social work  respectively social/psychological studies or profession. This was even integrated in the program by an "Intercultural evening", where we shared food and special stories of our home countries.


I really hope all the participants will remain connected, developing and spreading the issues of emergency pedagogy in their local area as well as in an European network! Personally as I am working as a volunteer in a social project of my city, I will bring in the knowledge I got during this training course whenever it seems to be relevant. Moreover I will try to promote the concept of emercency pedagogy for example through a short presentation with practical input in an association where I worked in a project for social inclusion of refugeed children and families. As I am currently studying Psychology, I can also imagine to later work in the field of traumatology and emergency pedagogy and to get more trained in it by special courses. Future will let me know how to actually turn this in reality!:)

Finally I want to thank all the people who helped to organize and create this trainings course and all the participants, who were really open to share their experiences, knowledge and feelings and made it possible to create a great community!

Until we meet again…


by Bettina Schwarz

One Wild Life: testemunhos

O curso de formação One Wild Life decorreu de 15 a 25 de Junho de 2017 em Sintra. Aqui ficam mais testemunhos de alguns dos participantes.

Teja Pahor, Eslovénia 

This journey was something I will never forget. It was the first time I ever experienced something like that. And it was above all the expectations. It was not only about learning ourselves a different methods and receiving a lot of new knowledge of how to do training. The best value of OWL training was a personal development which came naturally and no one expected it. In 10 days I think I was manage to grow personally more then I have ever before. I am still in research of my vocation but that doesn't mean I am not grateful from the bottom of my heart for this experience. I will never forget the people, the coop and some useful methods which I will hopefully use in the future. 

Nil Roda Noguera, Espanha 

We live in a time of detachment and liquid societies, where individuals struggle to find their place in a highly globalized, ever-changing context. We live in a time deeply suffering from three major divides: the divide between self and nature - I am not my environment, I am not Earth; the divide between self and other - I am not you, your problem is yours; and the divide between self and Self - I am not playing my fullest potential, because I don't even know what that is. However, we also live in the time of data and information, a time where interconnectedness, interdependence and the living globality of the world are a matter of fact. A time where the complexity is visible, tangible and where we are just awakening to the understanding that, it's time to learn how to truly work together. It doesn't take much for youth to understand this reality: they are embedded in it, they both suffer and benefit from it. Formal and informal education are yet to truly evolve to be able to offer the right spaces to support this youth, manly because the People behind the structures, often doesn't have an embodied experience of how to proactively live in complexity and uncertainty, and therefore it is difficult to bring theory into practice. Everywhere I see in youth a growing and deep longing to consciously explore the question Who am I in relationship to the world? What can I do in such a complex world? What is my gift I can/want to offer? And what do I need to unfold my potential? One Wild Life was Experiencial learning for youth workers to get this embodied experience of connection, collaboration and interconnection. One Wild Life helped us be able to practice being the professionals we want to be, so we can be better examples to the people we work with. One Wild Life was the What and How of how to create the right spaces to host youth in this exploration. 

Nicoletta Benfatti, Itália

This experience was very interesting for me. It meant to discover myself and my ability expressing and telling my past and future projects. I learned that the images and the drawings are most important that lots of words, when you need to describe a project to other people. I took home a method with which I could tell and describe my future project of the ecological park that I am realizing in Italy, on the hills near Verona, in a more amazing and interesting way. At the same time I'll share my experience and teach this method to all the people with which I'm working in RIVE, the Italian Ecovillage Network. I suggest to other people to participate at this training course with Reka and Sara, because they are amazing and their sweetness and clarity in ascertaining the concepts are involving. All the people I met made me very happy and comfortable. I hope to see them again. 

Andrada Vaidos, Roménia
What am I going to do with this One Wild Life? This was a thing that I always had in my mind: we have ONE wild life. So why not make the most of it?! Though I kept having a hard time in figuring out HOW to make the most of it. The best gift we have in this life is humanity. And this self-explorative, intense, challenging training course accomplished it`s mission of giving us a vision, a direction about HOW we could make the most of this one wild life by using this gift of being humans. The structure was fascinating and extremely revealing. It`s as simple as that: in order to get an understanding about the world, we need to understand ourselves, so in order to make a change in the world, we need to make a change within ourselves. Each authentic action is driven by inner dreams, wishes, challenges. So first step is to make them clear in our mind. To make some order in the chaos. All the techniques used, all the exercises, all that sharing in circle what was in our mind and what we have been working on was extremely helpful in crystallising and prioritising thoughts. What is what I truly stand for in this world is a question that will probably stay in my mind always from now on. Because it is pointless to do things just because they need to be done and not because something inside drives you, pushes you towards that. Humanity consists in feelings, feelings that lead to action. Feelings need to be expressed, it`s unhuman to lock them inside, though we do that so much nowadays, out of fear of judgement, probably. Humanity is also about people getting united and fulfilling dreams together. One cannot do anything alone. We are meant to do things together, to listen and support each other. And, just like magic, the team and participants from One Wild Life were all there for the others. The connections that had been formed between people were out of this world. For those 10 days, we were a family, for the next decades we will keep on being connected. And this happened because we got a great context to open and connect, a safe and trustworthy one. The team knew what they were doing and how to make us feel comfortable with being ourselves and sharing, expressing what is in our mind and souls. We received priceless tools to work with in this lifelong mission of making the most of our (one wild) life. Long story short, One Wild Life was the trigger. A trigger to understand ourselves, to crystalize what we are standing for and to figure out HOW to take action and to make a difference in this world by doing things that we truly, honestly believe in. Some of us already knew, some others had their revelation, their “AHA” moment there, during the training course, and some others (including myself) didn`t know what they believe in, but now, after this experience they have a strong clue and some useful tools to keep on working on to find what is there worth to stand for. 

Chaotic thoughts about One Wild Life: 

• It was the confirmation that one can feel most valuable and useful when doing things together with others. 
• It was the push for setting an intention. 
• In order to take action out there in the world, first the healthy thing to do is to take action within oneself. 
• It was the challenge of being completely open and honest towards people around. 
• It was the revelation that giving and receiving support is one of the most human and constructive attitudes possible. 
• Introspection.
• Collecting the energy within and motivation to release it with a specific and clear direction. 
• Putting the chaos in order. 
• All the inspiring people! 
• Authenticity in the behavior, in the words spoken, in the actions taken.
• Pushing the limits. 
• Do it the hard way. 
• Self exploration and being self centered does not mean selfish. 
• It`s just that the balance within oneself is able and will bring balance in the world around us .
• You give what you are. 

Simina Tureac, Roménia

“One Wild Life” was a beautiful, rewarding experience for me. It was like a labyrinth with a lot of unknown paths and each path made my fears one by one to come up and at the end just standing there –being myself – trying to find out the way out. Even before coming to the training, I knew that the methods were interesting (knowing that some were based on the work of Bill Plotkin and Mary Oliver) but my expectations were over reached while participating in the training. Now, after one month, I still have glimpses of the best moments in the training, of the beautiful Eco Village and of the great people I met. I went through a deep learning process starting from who I truly am beyond the roles that we usually play in the society, connecting with myself and speaking about myself from the heart. Related to this, the methods used for this (map of life, charismatic communication) made me remember the relevant moments in my life, the ups and downs, but the most important were the threads – those states when I was driven by passion and excitement in my life for creating something/doing something. Going forward, remembering those moments, I had to confirm to myself that I still have the passion and the inspiration to create again and to know what I want to create: and here it goes the artistic techniques (Double circle and the Dyade) for taking a moment to write everything that comes to my mind and bringing the dream close to reality. 
Further on, with the session “me and the world” I went deeper in the emotional state of being by remembering and sharing moments when I felt “hit” by the world, meaning those moments when I felt meaningless and full of fears because I couldn’t control something bad happening from the outside. Actually, going through a few exercises, made me understand that I am the only one who can control the state I want to feel, maybe there is nothing to do to save the whole world, but for sure there is a solution for everything. It’s up to me to take action instead of watching TV and complain that nobody is not doing anything. The AMOEBA model by Alan Atkinson was for me the most relevant to understand how actually cultural change happens and how can an idea become an innovation, a part of the system. Furthermore, I find that the Nature Quest from Day 6 was really important for discovering how nature always helped me learn new things about myself, especially the things I could see differently- a new perspective for my life, new possibilities for starting something new or just confirmation about what I truly like to do. The quest in nature and the living beings from nature taught me a lot about weakness, being strong, not being afraid of showing vulnerability as long as I am honest and true to my soul. And of course, the most important, the nature circle of everything being perfect as it is, of everything happening for a reason, within a given moment in time and space. A lesson from nature’s order. 
The rest of the learning process that followed until the last day was for me about being inspired, finding partners and collaborators for the dream project idea I wanted to develop. Second by second, I felt inspired, stimulated and excited to make the plan for my dream project and the strategy to develop it once I arrive back home. Except for the project idea I discovered I want to create, I also brought home a lot of new techniques and methods that I can use for supporting a learning group towards personal and professional development. All the processes I learnt and the methods about facilitation at the end of each session are very helpful to make other volunteers and youngsters in my organization finding their own authentic vocation and encourage them to take action towards their dream projects. In the present moment, being at home, I have been working hard on my project since 4 weeks, it’s not easy, but I am working with a joyful heart and it feels great. The enthusiasm is still here. 

Anni Shakur, Estónia

Training course 'One wild life' is mainly a wild journey to inner self. I remember the day when I saw the call and I knew I'll be there. My struggles with world, other people, society, 'system' and myself got many answers. I'd say that many problems got finally talked out and even solved. With those people and environment I felt so comfortable that when I felt like crying I could do it. And of course this course was full of laughs too. I understood much more about my fears, passions and other people around me. What I loved the most about this training course was that I had the space to be myself and people from all over the world had the same opportunity. And that's where the magic started. The beauty of human being without any borders. I'm forever grateful for this life changing experience.

One Wild Life

Aqui podem ler mais testemunhos dos participantes do curso de formação One Wild Life, que decorreu de 15 a 25 de Junho de 2017 em Sintra.

Katja Jezeršek, Eslovénia

The biggest treasure that I got from the OWL course were the people with whom I lived throughout the course and with whom I shared the experience. I am immensely thankful for their honesty, openness, braveness and willingness to share their thoughts, insights, feelings, experiences, struggles, questions, doubts, pain, joy, happiness, love, talents, music and knowledge with me. Used to being alone quite a lot, it was challenging for me to be surrounded with so many people, but I learned something very important. It is easier to find privacy in the midst of a community that find company in the midst of solitude. The combination of guided introspection and reflection on our past actions or reactions, stands and visions plus intensive community living created a space in which I was challenged and provoked enough that I felt some discomforts, fears, insecurity. It was very precious to see those Achilles heels of mine which I am normally avoiding and trying to forget about them. The space held by facilitators and the whole group was safe and compassionate which helped me express, face and challenge my weaknesses. 

Apart from learning the shady side of me, I also discovered a lot of joy that I did not know before or I almost forgot about it, especially when we were singing together, dancing, improvising, playing. I felt that we created a space of trust and acceptance where I could very freely express myself. I was amazed in how unique and beautiful way each participant contributed to the whole. Here I became more aware of the fact that the most beautiful things come out when we act from our true selves. This is a bug encouragement not to be afraid of being different and unique, to stand out from the crowd and on the other hand not to struggle to be unique. If you act from your core, you will always be unique and impressive. SO acting from your true self is your responsibility. This is something I would like to share with the youth I work with. I would like to encourage young people to connect to their selves, recognise their real needs and dreams and express them in a assertive and respectful way. I learned a lot of techniques of creating a space in which self expression, imagination and dreaming is encouraged (sharing circle, magic objects, tibetan bells, candles, guided meditations, activities which were focusing on different senses, singing, drawing, creating the map of life, free writing, if nothing would stop me, etc.). What I can easily incorporate into my work with the youth in summer camps is the hero journey. It can bring the experience of the participants of our summer camps to a higher level. I will probably also use the activities we were doing on our last day of the course (walk with eyes closed and others whispering encouraging words and final sharing circle with the wool string). I liked the concept of the course, diving in and climbing out and I think the timeline made sense. I am grateful to the organisers and facilitators for creating this space full of encouragement and opportunities to learn and grow, and i am even more thankful to them for leaving us the freedom to take or reject all the content of the course. I would not hesitate even for a second to recommend the course to the others. And I am not loosing hope that we might organise a OWL volume 2 one day! 

Pim van Luijtelaar, Holándia

A very intense training course which took me in a new chapter in my life. I learned a lot about myself and this helped me a lot in this new stage where I am right now. Finding myself, my own authentic vocation! That also made me to find a new way of working with kids and juveniles that struggle with their lives. During the training course i experienced this change inside myself, and what i think, is the best way to help these kids and juveniles. what is it that i really like and love to do? What is it that i really opens my heart and creativity? Starting at myself, and not so much: what other people would like to see (prejudices)! I got to know myself much better, (helicopter view) looking at my life from different points of view, sharing my life story with others and listening to others stories. It was a very confronting training course! implementing al the new information (finding your authentic vocation and starting at the motivation from kids in a Judicial residential setting) wasn't so hard for me cause I already went trough it by myself, I gave a little presentation for my colleagues and tel them about my experiences. I'm training colleagues to implement in the kids and juveniles there lives: finding things and goals in there life, starting from there own motivation, how to vibrate positivity at every moment and live at the moment! 

Alícia Rendo, Espanha 

This training course has changed my life, and my perspective to see the world. Now, I'm sure of my authentic vocation. Thanks for all, hugs and kisses, Ali 

Liudmila Gasina, República Checa

One Wild Life was a great opportunity for me to meet amazing people who are eager to bring changes into this world. People who can ignite the hearts of others during their own coach sessions or just in a usual conversation. The conditions of the projects literally brought us together giving food for thoughts about who we are, what we can do and how should we do it. At the end we were more than just 26 people living together in wild environment - we became a community. Things which I took from the project are incredibly important for me as a personality: I learnt how important it is for me to stand my ground and have my own boundaries. How my own past affected me and what an important part of my life it is. I learnt to accept myself and let me be who I am. Also I got aware of my capabilities both personal and professional ones.