A trainer looking for trainees

Have you ever been excited about conducting a training session? When you were all prepared and ready to go, but then it didn’t happen?

Most times when that happens it’s not your fault: there are ‘unforeseen circumstances’ that mean the trainees are not available. Or the organization informs the trainees too late, so you arrive and find an empty room without anyone to train!

My passion

I’m really passionate about making a positive change to people’s lives, and open to learning new things, so I was thrilled to join the Three Mountains’ Life Skills Academy this year as a soft skills trainer.

My journey as a trainer started in 2016 at university.  I went on a ‘training of trainers’ course to learn how to train other people on how to turn their agricultural knowledge into money-making projects. I thought the course participants would be keen to attend this training opportunity: that they would be sure to attend. The participants did come, to start with. It was fun, and I started to enjoy giving the sessions. However, over the weeks, the number of trainees decreased and sometimes just half of them attended.

I was asked to do the training as a lecture. I couldn’t take the initiative to remind participants to attend, or change the content of my lectures. Despite all this, I grew as a trainer, but then, as the lecture content did not change, the work became very repetitive.

So then I joined a sports organization working on leadership and women’s empowerment. I trained young women who had dropped out of school. I gave them lectures and did sports with them, and it was a lot of fun to start with. Everyone came on time. Those with children left them at home to come and study. But later they started bringing their children with them because their house-helpers had left. Some women refused to do the sports activities – they  said they felt unwell.

At Three Mountains

When I joined the Three Mountain’s Life Skills Academy, I was surprised to see how the team did their training. They use a participative training method, so trainees have to interact, do role plays, think for themselves. Trainees find their own solutions to their challenges.

I’ve now worked on different topics, with different trainees. This has pushed me out of my comfort zone. If you only train people on one topic, you soon get lazy. Now, I have to prepare properly: reading and learning about each topic! In terms of methodology, I’ve had to keep quiet, and let the participants learn for themselves.

I also like the fact that we keep trainee numbers low to ensure we give high-quality training. When I started training, all that mattered was getting as many trainees as possible to attend, not worrying about the training quality.

I still enjoy training, but some training sessions get cancelled at the last minute, some participants don’t attend, or a training session is cancelled because trainees don’t complete the pre-training coursework. Managing training courses and trainees is challenging, and I’m learning more every day.

Why not visit our website: www.threemountains.academy to learn about our online Life Skills Academy courses. Or contact us at: info@threemountains.academy for information on in-person training topics.

We look forward to meeting you soon!

 

Germaine Mukansoro