• Underlying our motivations, both personal and professional, reflecting on what drives us here.
• Sharing our motivations and learning objectives with each other.

Duration: 3 hours

> Step 1

For one hour, ask the participants to reflect on their personal path, from their birth to the day of the training course, and to draw it. Encourage them to reflect specifically on the key moments of their life that mirrored the topics of the training course.

> Step 2

Building on their previous reflection, invite the participants to choose from their personal experience two important moments of their life where their way of seeing the world changed.

One will be part of their “Little story”, meaning that it is related to their personal/intimate life. It can be related to their family, their studies, their friends… The “Little story” is necessarily something that could only happen to them or within the circle of their close relatives. Nobody knows about it except them or those close people.

The other one will be part of the “Big story”, the story of the world: : it can be a war, a political moment, a book, a movie… This story is something that is not personal, because it happens independently of the person’s personal path, nevertheless is has an impact on the way the participant relates to a larger group.

Once the self-reflection is finished, invite the participants to gather in small teams (5-6 persons) to make a timeline of their group with all their “Little stories” and “Big stories”. Teams can rather be picked by random or by country, which can help to highlight social contexts specific to each country.

In both cases, ask the participants to write down the 2 key moments they selected for themselves on the common timeline and to explain to the others the impacts these events had in their lives.

After one hour, you will get the group’s timeline, that tells a lot about the participants’ personal and cultural background.

To close the session, ask each group to introduce briefly their timeline to the other groups (10 minutes tops/group). They should not get into all details, but point out the most significant elements of their timeline, highlighting common themes, specific to each group, as well as a glimpse of the variety of the experience of the members.

At the end of the exercise, display the timelines in the venue, so that every person can have a look at it afterwards.

• 1 A3 per person (to draw their life path)
• 1 paperboard sheet per group of work + markers
• 1 Paperboard for the final restitution