Summary
Overview of the International Activist Training Program
The Activist Training Program is a series lectures, team-based exercises, and hands-on workshops that teach participants how to identify a local problem, break it down to its root causes, and identify where to take action. During this process, you will learn to test your ideas with the reality of issues critical to the local communities you aim to help, develop an implementable project idea, and design an effective implementation plan. Skills you will learn include breaking down complex issues, making presentations, public speaking, leadership, effective research, networking, group decision-making, finance and fundraising, cross-cultural communication, working with the media, and conflict resolution. Prior participants have started their own small businesses, launched local change initiatives, and become directors of nonprofits. Regardless of your path, we will challenge, transform and inspire you to become a positive agent of change in your community. Click here for a course outline.
To implement a project requires an organization, so during the entire program you will be building the team which will be the engine of your ideas for change. There is no other way to learn how to build an effective team other than doing it. Through a integrated series of exercises, you will have to communicate, make decisions, and achieve a goal together with a diverse group of people. This is easily the most difficult part of Global PACT: communicating your ideas and expectations to the group and learning how to live, work and accomplish your goals together. Your team will be comprised of a roughly equal number of students from organizations and schools across our host community.
As any activist can tell you - if you want the general public to pay attention to your ideas, you must learn to communicate clearly and effectively. Therefore, during Global PACT training, you will practice communicating your organization's message and mission. Daily, you will speak to the public and other target audiences, working with print, Internet and television media organizations. At the end of your training, your group will launch your organization’s first project at a live press conference with local media coverage. Not only will exercise serve as a test for the lessons learned during Global PACT training, but also will create awareness about the issues your group identified in the host community.
Timeline
Week One - Understanding Issues
