Training Course for International Officers – TCIO 2015
Last week the 2015 edition of TCIO took place in Brussels. 45 participants from OBESSU Member, Candidate and Affiliate Organisations met for a full week of learning, sharing and discovering the international work and OBESSU organisations in the capital of Europe.
The aim of TCIO was to develop synergies among international officers of school student organisations around Europe and this ambitious aim was translated to a very interesting and interactive programme by a team of trainers and facilitators composed by Pina and Laufey Maria from the Board of OBESSU, Egzon and Ketie from the Pool of Trainers and with the support of the OBESSU Secretariat.
Everything started on Sunday when participants arrived to sunny Brussels and had the first welcoming evening with the whole group: A warm-up session for an upcoming week full of intense experiences.
Monday was the official start of the programme and the day was dedicated to introduce the programme, to get to know each other and OBESSU, as well as to start getting to know each other organisations and common struggles. The day ended with a reflection on the participants’ role as international officers, what were they doing? What was expected from them?
The second day of the training focused on exploring European identity, what is it made of? Is there any European Citizenship at all? A lot of discussions and reflections were triggered and participants didn’t finish the sessions without questions. The rest of the day included training on the structures and democratic processes in European Institutions, as well as a deep work on the units and services with whom OBESSU cooperates at international level. The session “Who speaks education in Europe?”, helped participants to understand what are the main documents at European level that deal with the topic of Education: the ET2020, the Europe 2020, the “Riga Conclusions” or the INI Skills report from the European Parliament, for example.
The third day was the day for the guests. We started the morning reflecting on the participants’ organisations partners and relations and we had the visit of some of the OBESSU partners: The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO), the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL), the European Youth Forum (YFJ) and the European Students Union (ESU) spent some time with participants sharing their main activities and their cooperation with OBESSU. During the second half of the morning we met up with Joao Santos, Head of the VET Unit of DG Employment of the European Commission and Blazhe Todorovski, Vice-Chairperson of ESU. They were then engaged in a debate on whether there should exist a European educational system or not. The arguments were very interesting and participants strongly engaged in the debate from very different experiences and perspectives.
After lunch the whole group had the chance to visit the European Parliament and engage in a very interesting conversation with Sara Benke, policy advisor to one of the German Members of the European Parliament (MEP), were she explained the insight work of the MEPs in the European Parliament and specifically how OBESSU cooperated with them to amend a report on VET, skills and the labour market. The whole visit was extremely interesting and participants enjoyed the possibility to see the European Institutions in real life.
Thursday was the capacity-building day and all the sessions were dedicated to build the capacity of participants to be active and trained international officers. The morning started with an introduction to advocacy and lobbying and the different tools available. The second part of the morning we organised two parallel sessions, one on campaigning, to learn the different essential steps you have to take to build an effective campaign; and the other one on communication, to learn how to be a good communicator and how to make your message come across the target you aim to reach.
The afternoon sessions were filled with the OBESSUland COMEM simulation. Participants became representatives of the school student unions of Mordor, Oz, Westeros, Gotham, the Minions, Atlantis, Madagascar, Hogwarts, Narnia and Panem and had to propose amendments to the OBESSUland Work Plan and Political Platform. The discussions were funny and fruitful and participants felt they learnt a lot about how the statutory meetings work in the platform.
The last day of TCIO was dedicated to look at the future. We started the day giving a look to funding opportunities, from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission, to the opportunities offered by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the possibilities to develop and carry out crowd funding projects.
During the second half of the morning participants discussed the proposal to create the OBESSU Member Organisation Forum: Who should be in there? What should be the content included? What is the main aim of the Forum? The outcomes of these discussions will help the OBESSU Board to further work on the forum and to make a proposal to all Member, Candidate and Affiliate Organisations.
The afternoon was a reflective moment, and participants imagined what should be the competences an International Officer should have and thought at a personal level, what they should do to develop themselves. The end of TCIO included an evaluation session where participants assessed their own learning and the organisation of TCIO using the YouthPass certificate and other evaluation methods.
TCIO finished with a lovely pat on the back to all participants, a nice reflection and messages to everyone during the farewell night.
In general, both participants and the team where strongly satisfied with TCIO, and everyone went home motivated to keep involved in their home organisations and at European level with OBESSU.
The follow-up of TCIO will include the creation of an easy-to-read booklet with information about the European Institutions, the organisations working on education at European level, and it will aim at helping newly international officers understand what are the European structures and where does OBESSU work on. Stay tuned because soon you’ll hear more about it!
Note: TCIO was funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.
Check out the pictures of the event on Facebook!!
