Lebanese-Danish Leader Training Camp – a rollercoaster of fun and learning

The halls of Mount Smash north of Beirut are now empty once again. But for five days they were occupied by 55 young Danes and Lebanese doing leader-training workshops, campaigns, energizers and having lots of fun together.

Af Camilla Juul Bjørn

17. November 2009

Lebanon has a great range of options when it comes to training, but the methodology used in the MS ActionAid Denmark camp was new to both Lebanese and Danish participants. The learning-by-doing approach and the construction of an imitated mini-world created an intense feeling and safe learning environment. The participants were divided into family groups, which made the camp very special in terms of the energy level and the feeling of togetherness. Rola, 22, says, “ I didn’t expect that every day would be a unique day, full of surprises and even more energetic and motivating than the previous one.”

The effort of changing the setting of the leader training from Denmark to Lebanon was worthwhile, and the dimension of cultural exchange was something every participant could truly benefit from. The insights gained, created a common understanding of the two cultures being similar in many ways though the differences in politics, youth culture, and volunteerism, among other things, were often discussed.

“The camp was a real big success, and I think it was especially due to the combination of personal learning and having fun. Many have also expressed that they have personally developed throughout the camp, since everyone engaged on very personal levels in the discussions and campaigns. This really increased the activist atmosphere! For instance, due to one of the campaigns on Palestinians’ situation in Lebanon, we had an intense discussion one night, and then after the camp ended, some of us visited Shatila camp,” says Clara Christensen, who was part of the training team.

At the camp each group worked on a mini-campaign, with subjects as civil marriage, climate, youth, equality, woman’s and Palestinians rights. Participants trained their leadership skills in practice by taking turns leading another group, and then receiving personal feedback. The subjects of the campaigns were chosen according to the interests submitted in the applications. Thus the camp witnessed a religious marriage, which turned into a civil one, a game of fighting discrimination and inequality, a performance on the situation in the camps, and a climate hijacking of a bus. The programme also left room for networking and discussing various topics, which participants raised themselves, such as secularism, homosexuality, women’s rights and religion. 

An extra flavour to the camp, were the Lebanese co-trainers who worked hand in hand with the Danish training team to adapt the content of the camp to the Lebanese context. “I’m really impressed by everybody at the camp. The participants really changed during the time here. And I also changed, as I thought all the games would do no good. But it did. We became very close all of us.” one Lebanese trainer says and another continues; ”The whole structure of the programme and the diversity is something we can learn from. Especially the learning by doing was new to me.” The cooperation with the Danish and the Lebanese trainers took off five days ahead of the camp and a lot of effort was put into the teambuilding “By the end of the day it is about inspiring the participants to work in a completely different way. And we succeeded. So all the hard work was worth it,” the trainers agree.

The personal empowerment and engagement of the participants was obvious, however the next step of passing on their experiences in their own organisations is still to come. The Lebanese partner organisations are now to support the camp participants to continue the network and support each other in their projects, sharing idea of how to use what they have learned for working on projects and new campaigns.

The activity is a milestone in the development of work plans with Lebanese partners when it comes to the MS ActionAid MENA programme. The leader training camp is a new initiative in Lebanon towards the establishment of a MENA region Global Platform based in Lebanon.