The best graduates of the DESPRO’s Local Self-Government School gathered in Kyiv to attend a five-day training session on interactive adult learning techniques. 

The event took place on March 20-24, thanks to the fruitful cooperation of the Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine - DESPRO, representatives of the Polish Foundation “Education for Democracy” and the International NGO “Our Podillia” (Vinnytsia). 

The participants of the training had the opportunity to get acquainted with modern methods and techniques of interactive learning, to study and practice the principles of adult learning, to improve communication skills and to discover many other small secrets of training activities. 

Thanks to the successful combination of theoretical and practical blocks and application of the “learning-by-doing” principle," the mastered skills in designing and conducting trainings were tested by the participants directly in the training group. This approach allowed to get feedback from peers and experienced instructors, to identify one’s own strengths in coaching (instruction), and to pinpoint the areas of further growth and development. 

As a result of the training, twelve newly trained trainers (instructors) from different regions of Ukraine have been certified, who have an enduring desire and enthusiasm for implementing the reforms at the local level, and also a huge bundle of experience and positive emotions has been gained, a part of which each participant took back into his/her community with the intention of further implementation of reformative plans.