Highlights from our leadership development course for young people in Turkey
How to develop young people through experience
Steve & Andrew’s word for the week on developing young people
Steve and Andrew report on the recent leadership and development course for young people in Turkey
In early October Steve and Wilki travelled to Turkey, to deliver a leadership and development programme to some young people of a range of nationalities. The group were lively and warm from the outset and we were made to feel welcome both by our hosts Josh and Debbie, and also the students themselves.
The package was lively and focussed on experiential learning, and even the most bleary-eyed students in the mornings were sparked up by some of Steve’s energy-fuelled activities! After some fun exercises to get to know each other better, we spent some time thinking about the significance of strong interpersonal relationships within a team, before moving on to a session on trust within teams.
We made good use of some local green spaces to do some trust-building exercises, before drilling into the detail of the different stages of a team, and some likely features to look out for when the group return home to build their own teams in the coming months.
Day 3 focussed fully on communication as leaders, which included some excellent exercises to illustrate how vital it is to understand ourselves in order to communicate well, and to understand how to influence a whole range of different character types. The group absolutely loved this session, not just because it was innovative but it also clearly illuminated some of the character traits they recognised both in themselves but also each other.
As always, the best way to develop what’s been learned is through experience, and so we spent an afternoon putting the group through a number of scenarios and activities - some were practical, some physical and all required thoughtful dialogue within the team to succeed.
We wrapped up the programme with some pre-mission training, centring around navigation, stretcher building, search techniques, casualty evacuation and basic first aid. The group were then dispatched into a search and rescue mission over rugged terrain, with a clear mission which they managed to complete just before the time ran out! Perfect brinkmanship!
Finally, we sat down to review what we had done and learned - which elements of the mission had been a great success and where the low points were, before evaluating their strengths as a team and where they might focus their development for the future.
It was an exciting, fully-charged and rewarding few days and it was a pleasure to work with this highly motivated group. Thanks to the group from us both!
Your turn
If you would like to develop your young people through adventure leadership training or find out more about our leadership courses, do get in touch.