On Monday, April 26th our Youth Leadership Team (YLT) facilitated a workshop for YouthWorks interns. Here are their thoughts on the experience:
After finishing our Mentor Training, we immediately began designing the Intern Training. First, we had to choose a topic to focus on. After much debate, we chose leadership because we felt that after YouthWorks, the interns could apply what they learned at work to the real world.
Some of the biggest challenges we faced were coming up with an icebreaker and choosing activities to fit our goals. We decided on a group icebreaker activity using Hula Hoops because we thought it would be fun; although it looked easy, it involved a lot of teamwork and leadership skills. During the training it was fun to watch the interns struggle with the Hula Hoop activity in the beginning and come up with ideas that we hadn’t even thought of.
The Super-Leader Activity was fun to design. The interns had to visually represent different leadership skills, and we got to see how creative the interns were. It was also exciting to see all the different qualities they came up with and what images came to mind to represent the different leadership qualities.
The most nerve-wracking activity was the small group discussions after the interns took the leadership styles quiz. Because we divided the youth based on their quiz results, the groups were uneven. We closed the training with our Fortune Teller activity where the interns were to write or draw the type of leader they want to be in 5 years and in 10 years.
Although the training took many weeks to design and plan, it was worth it in the end. The interns really seemed to enjoy themselves and generally gave positive feedback. Many wrote that they wanted more time and felt that the training was fun and hands-on. We felt that the training was a success and are happy to know that our efforts paid off.
Written by YLT members Che’Graftenay Mims, Jennifer Nguyen and Thurston Zhu. For more information about the YLT, please see our staff bios.