Days for Girls is an international educational NGO that supports women and girls worldwide in a variety of ways.
“Days for Girls increases access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating social enterprises, mobilizing volunteers, and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigmas and limitations for women and girls”
Whenever you’re working in a multicultural context, there are factors that shape communication, in and out of awareness. That is why I was asked to run a diversity awareness coaching program for a local brunch of Days for Girls, in Panajachel, Guatemala. The goal of the intervention was to inhance team cooperation based on the group’s strengths.
The organisation received team coaching over a period of 3 months. The experinetial learning workshops explored the following topics:
- contracting based on values (G. Barrow)
- human psycho-biological hungers (E. Berne)
- strokes and Stroke Economy (C. Steiner)
- Life Positions (E. Berne) and Cultural Positions (J. Kline)
- building individual and group resources (Liselotte Fassbind-Kech)
- Cultural Frames of Reference (Norman James)
Throughout this project I became aware that the most important attribute of a facilitator is the ability to connect deeply with the group members. This paves the way for meaningful interventions. All the fancy coaching ideas are of no use, unless a consultant opens themselves up to be impacted and relationally responsive. In simple terms, successful work means creating conditions for a real conversation. At the end of the last workshop, the team members and the leadership team had an honest, heart-to-heart conversation that cleared some of the stagnant issues. I hope they keep applying their learning – now they are aware of what it means to really talk to each other.
If you would like to know more about Days for Girls, here is the website
