In late January I was given the amazing opportunity to travel to Our Chalet in Switzerland to be trained in the WAGGGS resource “Voices Against Violence”. I have been interested in this resource since its launch and so was thrilled at the chance to learn all about it alongside new friends from many different countries. Four of us travelled from the UK to take part in the event.
I’m from Girlguiding Ulster, so of course it was inevitable that the first of my fellow participants that I met would be the delegation from the Irish Girl Guides! We arrived just in time for dinner, where we were quickly immersed in the international life of Our Chalet, joining volunteers from Zimbabwe, New Zealand and the USA for the meal. It was an early night after a long day of travel and an informative tour of the centre, and we wanted to be well rested for the start of the event the following morning.
Bright and early on Monday morning, we all came together in the conference room. An eclectic mix of participants from Ireland, Greece, Lebanon, El Salvador and, of course, the UK were joined by volunteers from Germany, Austria, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Iceland, Venezuela and Hong Kong! We created a code of conduct for the training, and then began our journey.
We began by learning about the Safe Space and how to challenge harmful views respectfully. This included having a go a few short activities from the pack to help start the conversation about stereotypes and Gender Based Violence. In the afternoon, each group was given a form of Gender Based Violence and asked to match its causes, consequences and harmful myths to the heading. We then presented this to the rest of the group.
After dinner we enjoyed the Swiss night. We began with a group of volunteers (including myself) acting out the story of William Tell, then sang a song in Swiss German, did a quiz about Switzerland and enjoyed some delicious chocolate fondue.
On Tuesday the sun finally appeared, allowing us to fully appreciate the beautiful surroundings in which we were training. Participants could often be seen pausing at windows, and when moving between buildings, to take photos of the snowscape.
We spent the morning breaking down myths about gender and Gender Based Violence, hearing some shocking facts and figures about the treatment of girls and women around the world - some of these shocking figures came from our own Girls Attitudes survey! In our groups we explored and then presented the sorts of myths and harmful beliefs surrounding the forms of Gender Based Violence and ways to challenge and defend against these myths.
We then moved on to looking at Gender and Diversity, examining the difference between sex, gender and sexuality. Even the youngest among us learnt some new terms!
After lunch we started to look at facilitation skills, such as the difference between facilitating, teaching and lecturing. We discussed the importance of the code of conduct in keeping groups under control and enjoyed some examples of the different teaching styles from our trainers. We then looked at group dynamics and how to recognise and deal with certain behaviours, as well as the typical ways that groups build relationships. Then we were split into groups to plan an activity from the resource to run with the rest of the group the following morning. We had the evening to plan and prepare a short 15 minute activity, with each of us given a specific age group and part of the resource to work from.
Tuesday night was my birthday, and I was surprised at dinner with candles on my dessert and getting to hear happy birthday sung in 10 different languages - English, German, French, Spanish, Icelandic, Finnish, Arabic, Greek, Cantonese and Irish!
Wednesday morning saw us back in the conference room ready to run our activities - activities that talked about diversity, stereotypes, human rights, sex and relationships and violence. This also gave us the opportunity to discuss how to involve boys and men in the activities, as the pack is intended for all young people - a daunting prospect for those of us from girl-only organisations, but as the UN’s HeForShe movement shows, women alone cannot end Gender Based Violence.
After lunch we had a Skype call with Nefeli and Jean-Anne from WAGGGS, who spoke with us about advocacy within WAGGGS and how Voices Against Violence fits into the wider picture. We learned about how to set up an advocacy campaign and practiced planning the first steps of a campaign in small groups.
Then, enthused and ready to take on Violence Against Girls and Women in our respective countries, we headed for our final meal all together, before heading out to an international campfire in the snow! Participants from all countries shared their favourite songs, and we discovered that some of them are even the same! We spent one last great evening hanging out with our new friends, before we has to say goodbye, as some of us had a very early start the following morning.
Stephanie, Victoria, Sarah and I returned home inspired and enthused by our experiences at Our Chalet, and look forward to sharing what we have learned.
This year was the biggest seminar yet, with 42 participants, and 40 countries represented at Our Chalet. They have a tradition of putting the flags from all the countries present in a little flag log. They had to drill more holes into the log just for this event! For many of the participants it was the first time they had ever seen snow.
As well as the seminar at Our Chalet, mini pop-up seminars were run throughout the world. During the seminar we were able to interact with some of these pop-ups via video call. It was inspiring to see what these other groups had been doing.
It wasn’t all work however. We also got to go sledging. It was great fun and a nice break from the more serious sessions. Every evening a session was run by the Our Chalet staff. These included a Swiss night, with a visit from an alpine horn player, an international night, with presentations and swaps from all the participants, and a “Who Wants to be a WAGGGS Millionaire” quiz. I also managed to find time to complete the Our Chalet Challenge.