Saturday, 11 May 2013

T.O.T Training Of Trainers.

 Welcome to TOT!

 It was a jolly day for the participants
TOT also known as Training of Trainers is a short course that is run by Cornerstone Veritas to equip people who are interested in teaching our 10 principles of leadership short course. We were happy to host this one day training at the Cornerstone offices in Kampala. 16 people attended the training from different parts of the Uganda including Soroti, Jinja Nakasongola and Kampala. Our interns, staff and friends from Cornerstone Veritas gathered for this course. Noelle and Frank facilitated this course while organization was done by Edmond and team.

The morning session was on vision casting.  The participants learned the vision for why we teach this course. Several of the reasons we discussed were, individual transformation, bringing the Kingdom of God on earth and seeing the transformation of Africa as a whole. We openly discussed the problems in Africa and concluded that the course strengthens us to solve these problems. To solve them, individual transformation is important in influencing transformation in the rest of the societies of Uganda and throughout Africa. TOT empowered participants with practical tools to go to their communities and teach the ten principles of leadership which brings about individual transformation for members of their societies.

 CV Staff: Bosco, Edmond and Frank
After the session on vision casting, we had a short break and then when straight into the second session.  This training is supposed to take two days, do in order to pack it into one we had to move quickly.  Noelle took us through the 2nd session, which was the core part of this training.  We learned how to facilitate a course, what to expect, our responsibilities as facilitators, class management and how to use the facilitation manual.  Noelle gave many examples and stories of times that things had gone wrong to help us understand how to correctly teach this material.

 Noelle and Interns
The best analogy she used was that of the human body.  She told us that the notes which we have provide for us bones and muscles of the talks and session, and that the examples which we come up with ourselves put the final “ flesh” on the body and help what we are teaching to become our own.  This was a helpful analogy that empowered each of the participants to understand how to use the resources and outlines they are given.

That session went a little over time, so we only had time for one teaching exercise before lunch.  Noelle broke us into groups of two and gave each of us sections from the manual to read through and prepare to teach.  After lunch, every group member presented the topic they had been given before lunch.  It was an interesting session filled with fun and laughter as participants tried to use funny examples while teaching.

Working in pairs to prepare practice sessions

 Session 3 three was as well taught by Noelle. She explored the tool box by explaining the different tools used while facilitating this course. Some of the tools include news prints, dynamics, team relationships, facilitator’s instructions and other necessary interpretations of each talk.

Representatives all the way from Jinja!
The fourth session was a closing and last part of the training. Noelle took time to analyze the general areas of improvement. While teaching TOT, she encouraged teachers to make participants understand the content of the course, through use of relevant examples, maintaining the integrity of the material among others.
It was a happy and successful day for the C.V family and interns.