• Defining the group's reason for being, building on their members motives, talents and values
• Bringing people together.

Duration: 4 hours (including breaks)

“IKIGAÏ” is a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being”. The word refers to having a direction or purpose in life, to what makes one's life worthwhile and towards which an individual takes spontaneous and willing actions giving them satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life.

It is that place where a person's passion, mission, vocation and profession intersect.
This is well illustrated by the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram.
The four circles represent:

• What the person loves
• What the person is good at
• What the world needs
• What the person is/could be paid for

The place where the four circles meet is where the person find their “ikigaï”.

The same scheme can be used to define the reason for being of a group, by associating it's members interests, talents and values.

Divide the participants in 4 groups and the working space in 4 areas.
Dedicate each area to one of the following questions :

• What I love
• What I'm good at
• What the world needs
• What I am/could be paid for.

Invite each group to take place in one area and start the first round.
Precise that all participants will get the chance to answer each question, one after the other (the order in which they will answer doesn't matter).

First, give the participants 3 minutes of personal reflection to answer the question. Precise they can't have more than 2 propositions per item (i.e. 2 things they love, 2 things they are good at, etc.).
When time is over, invite them to share their answer out loud with the others. Take notes of what is said on a A4 sheet (using your best writing and precising the number of the group and the question they answered to).

Invite groups to switch and start again the process. Take notes of what is said on a new A4 (1 A4 per group and per question).
Repeat until all participants answered all questions.

Give them a break (15').

During the break, copy each A4 twice in order to create 4 new working areas :

• PASSION = What I love + What I'm good at
• MISSION = What I love + What the world needs
• VOCATION = What the world needs + What I am/could be paid for
• PROFESSION = What I am/could be paid for + What I'm good at

When the participants return from the break, invite them to mix and to join one working area, knowing that this time they won't work on all items.

Invite the participants to reflect on the fears they have regarding both the seminar and the collective living and to write them on a piece of paper. Remember them that each fear has to be written on a different paper. (5’)

Make a circle and ask the participants to crumble the papers with their fears and to throw them in the middle of the circle. That way, the fears are no longer the fears of a person but the fears of the group as a whole. (5’)

Then, one by one, invite the participants to collect a paper, read it out loud and glue it on a common Flipchart blank paper (gather similar fears together as much as possible). Continue until all the fears have been read. (10’)

To conclude the session, invite the participants to focus on what will be their joys during this week.

The speech is free: they can express either personal, either social or pedagogical experiences. One by one, the participants who feel like sharing their ideas with the group will put themselves in the middle of the circle and expressing their idea out loud. (Only the ones that have an idea and want to share it will take the speech; the participants they are free to express or not).

Invite then the other participants to take position regarding it, by taking position around the person who made the proposition. The more they agree with the idea, the closer to the person they will go.

• Post-it
• Flipchart papers
• Blank paper