Create Your Grassroots Training Course

On the 1-7th of July, 2019, 24 participants from 14 countries came together for the ‘Create Your Grassroots’ training course in Brno, Czech Republic. This training course is part of the ‘Let Grassroots Grow’ project, which also consisted of a seminar and webinars.

During the 5 days, participants learned and built their capacities and knowledge of grassroots movements, methods, structures and how to plan their own.

The objectives of the training course were:

– To explore, learn and practice diverse tools and methods of grassroots project management

– To give tools and knowledge on how to work with local authorities and get funding and support for grassroots actions

– To plan local grassroots-related action using new skills and tools

Explore in detail what we did for each day of the course below and view our picture gallery:

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Day 1

Day one started with name games and team building activities.

An introduction to the project was given along with the outline and timetable of the program for participants to understand what they will explore over the next days.

Participants outlined their expectations of the training course and what they expected to give from themselves during their time together.

The participants were given an introductory session to the April ‘Know Your Grassroots‘ seminar.

The day ended with reflection and a NGO fair, giving space for participants to talk about their organisations.

Day 2

On day two the participants were introduced to different elements within grassroots movements and explored commonalities and differences between movements.

The participants identified issues in their local communities that they would like to solve and learned how to identity and map stakeholders.

Gaining an understanding of the importance of network mapping and the connections between individuals and issues the participants moved on to explore strategy development.

During day two they shared about their local realities and learned from each other about the different issues that they all face.

The day ended with reflection and an intercultural night with the participants sharing stories, food and culture from their countries.

Day 3

During day three the participants explored communication and the importance of communicating the message of their cause to an audience.

Having gained knowledge of the importance of stakeholders during day two, the participants put into action what they learned by a role play session where the participants acted as different stakeholders within a community playing roles such as city council members, workers, conservationists, health board, community members, coal company, mayor, protesters and union members. The participants were able to see how important co-operation, communication, listening and compromising are when faced with a problem.

In the afternoon participants were free to explore Kapraluv Mlyn and Brno.

Day 4

Participants learned on the fourth day, about the differences between FUNdraising and CrowdFUNding and of the different methods of crowdfunding.

During the day they also learned about the different level of engagement and how to engage volunteers within their movements and organisations.

A session was given on the importance of personal motivation and what is important to them when it comes to motivation.

In the afternoon the participants took part in a role play session to gain a better understanding of how environmental & youth NGO’s can support them in their cause, movement, action and how they can approach these NGO’s for support in future.

It was inspiring to see the participants using the knowledge gained over the last three days in the sessions and working together as a group.

Day 5

On the morning of the last day the participants explored appreciative inquiry and drew the perfect world that they want to live in.

The participants reflected on the last five days by exploring and planning their next future steps and created a future action plan for the actions they will take once they are back home.

The afternoon ended with a cricle in The Way of the Council and a farewell party.

Everyone was inspired by each other over the five days and we can’t wait to see how our participants use the knowledge gained during this seminar.