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Simulation Exercise, Exercise

The wishing tree and scarecrow

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To allow participants to review their expectations related to the training course in terms of hopes and fears in a nice and creative way;
To provide space to participants to reflect upon their expectations/possible contributions/fears regarding the training course and share those with the others;
To create a common ground among participants;
For the team to check if the expectations of participants go hand in hand with the planned programme and to make the necessary adjustments;
To check at the end of the week if the expectations have been fulfilled and the learning needs achieved;

Description of the tool

General setting

Create a nice and relaxed atmosphere for participants.
Play piece of relaxing music (Wishing tree song from Sonia Dada).
Ask the participants to lie on the floor in a comfortable position. Speak to the participants in a soothing and deep slow voice. Do not rush through the instructions so that everybody can easily understand it and feel relaxed.
Make ready the Power Point Presentation, while one trainer is reading the story one will show Power Point Presentation and play music.

Before the story - 5 min

The purpose of this story is to make the participants go into the most inner part of their brain and heart, a search for their values. Explain that this story is to find out what their motivations were to come to the training course and what their expectations are. All motivations and expectations are acceptable, personal, professional, organisational, etc. The purpose is to bring out the reasons that made them want to come or be sent by their NGO. Tell them that when the story is over they will be asked to write down their motivations and expectations on post-its and share them with the rest of the group.

Start the story - 5 min

See below.

After the story - 15 min

Give some time for participants to come back from the story and stand up. Remind them once more of your questions and ask them to write down their answers in the relevant post-it (dark pink for fears and green for hopes).

Conclusion - 10 min

Conclude the session by giving a general idea of what are the main motivations and expectations among the group.
Ask if the participants have anything to add.
Also mention that the group will come back to this wishing tree to check if the participants’ expectations have been fulfilled and aims have been reached.


Evaluation

Ask the participants how they felt during the activity.
There will be pink and green post-its on the flipcharts with the same number of participants or more.

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Disclaimer

SALTO cannot be held responsible for the inappropriate use of these training tools. Always adapt training tools to your aims, context, target group and to your own skills! These tools have been used in a variety of formats and situations. Please notify SALTO should you know about the origin of or copyright on this tool.

Tool overview

http://toolbox.salto-youth.net/1043

This tool is for

To have participants self-reflect on their hopes and fears for the course

and addresses

Social Inclusion, Disability, Anti-Racism, EuroMed, Group Dynamics, Youth Initiatives, Voluntary Service, YOUTH in ACTION (YiA) programme, Project Management, Networking and Follow-up, Intercultural Learning, Personal Development, Conflict Management, Organisational Management, European Citizenship, South-East Europe, Peer education, Gender issues, Eastern Europe and Caucasus, Evaluation, Youth Democracy projects, Youth Participation

Materials needed:

2 different colour post-its (green for hopes; dark pink for fears);
Drawing of a wishing tree on a flipchart;
Drawing of a scarecrow on another flipchart;
OHP for PowerPoint presentation;
A soft music (Wishing Tree Song by Sonia DADA);
PowerPoint presentation for visualizing the story (See bellow)

Duration:

1 h

Behind the tool

The tool was created by

Unknown.

(If you can claim authorship of this tool, please contact !)

The tool was published to the Toolbox by

SALTO EUROMED (on 11 June 2009)

and last modified

11 June 2009

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