Our priority in working with volunteers remains to train and maintain a high level of motivation. At the same time, it is pleasant that it is already a common practice to turn a volunteer into a partner, which warms the soul of our community facilitator Olena Belik, who develops the volunteer movement within the framework of the project “Advocacy for Sustainable Social Services”.
Maria Tkachenko and Daria Zhdanovych, were volunteers of our center in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region. Then the full-scale invasion began, and they, like many residents of the country, had to learn to live in the regime – war every day.
There was a need to learn how to cope with stress and anxiety, and to be able to do it on their own, they became participants of the training course “Children and War. Teaching healing techniques”, which we conducted for teenagers. The girls were delighted, but quickly realized that they wanted not only to use the knowledge themselves, but to share it with others.
So together with Olena, but already in the role of trainers, they joined online trainings for schoolchildren in Kramatorsk. In total, during 8 meetings they taught a little more than 70 teenagers of different ages.
We asked them about their motivation and this is what they said:
“I myself know how healing techniques are sometimes needed, so I am happy to introduce them to others. My motivation was born when I saw the smiles of the participants and heard their satisfied feedback at our first training.
Since then, it has not disappeared. Each of the participants is special, and after the training they give something different through feedback. Energy, warmth, new experience, the realization that I can help someone is my motivation,” said Maria.
Daria said the following: “I like to communicate with children, they are very active, and after our meetings they leave us in a great mood. I learn a lot of useful information for myself, including new and useful calming techniques.”
Of course, we asked them about their plans for the future, because the best partnership is permanent. Here the girls gave the following answers:
Daria said: “Yes, I plan to learn more techniques and share my knowledge with other people, teach them to calm down and be able to control their own emotions”.
Maria said: “As for the continuation of our trainings, I believe that this was the first small but successful step. Further – more. I plan to continue working with the children of our school, but to teach new techniques. I would really like to conduct trainings offline and maybe start working with a slightly different audience. Maybe from other schools”.
We are sure that Caritas Kramatorsk will be able to support the girls in this. Finally, we asked them if they had learned anything new themselves, being in the role of trainers rather than participants. The answer is pleasantly inspiring:
I have already said that each participant is a special universe and I learn a lot from them. Unexpected reactions, answers that are not the same as everyone else’s, understanding how to do the right thing – you also need to get used to this and learn how to do it.
With the help of our trainings, I learned to determine the dynamics of the group, to distinguish the mood by the answers, to encourage and call for more active work, and with some, on the contrary, I learned to introduce rules and discipline into the class. I believe that the experience I gained as a coach is very useful and helps me to develop.
Just as a person and a teenager, I learned to communicate better with children of different ages, developed my oratory skills a little. Finally, I want to add that I realized the truth more: helping others makes you more fulfilled and happy for no reason!” – says Maria.
Daria made other conclusions:
“I learned to understand that there are different children and they have individual emotions, they may not be active at all, because of this the meeting may be sad and boring for them, and then we need to cheer them up a little. It’s not our fault, as I thought before, the children may be shy of us, they may not like our techniques, and this is quite normal, because we are different, some may be helped by the technique, some may not.”
We are sure that the girls will succeed, we will support them, and even one day they will move from partners to another new status – specialists of the Foundation, who knows!