Horganic English n6

N6_DECEMBER | 2014

Welcome to the HORGANIC newsletter!

The second year of the HORGANIC project has already finished and much work has been done! In this sixth issue you will find a short summary of the work done during 2014, as well as an interesting updating about the training course and the supervisory visits that have been done by the experts.

We are glad you continue reading us and sharing with the HORGANIC team our success, challenges, difficulties and experiences. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for the coming year 2015, full of flowers, nature and life.

Enjoy the read, The Horganic TEAM

This project has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig sub-programme, from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

REVIEW OF THE WORK DONE DURING 2014

2014 has been a very exciting year for the HORGANIC team. The preliminary versions of the HORGANIC trainers’ manual and the trainees’ textbook were finished under the supervision of the Quality Board.

We do believe that we have elaborated a useful and easy-to-teach training course, as detailed in the reports from the trainers implementing the course.

The HORGANIC course started in Spain, Slovenia and Germany and so far we have around 30 people with mental illness that are following the course in a regular way. Feedback is been very positive, with a high rate of commitment of the participants (only few of them withdrew from the course) and a lot of enthusiasm to learning more and more things. We even have a success story: one of the Spanish participants found a temporary work as a gardener! By the end of the course we hope having more happy stories like this.

For more information about all the things done during this ending year, we invite you to visit our website http://horganic.intras.es and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Horganic?ref=hl.

HORGANIC TRAINING COURSE, HOW IS IT GOING? The Spanish trainers are happily surprised about the warm welcome of the course by the trainees.

One of the biggest challenges when talking about long term trainings for people with mental illness is engagement, normally most of them use to withdraw such long training courses but this time has been different. They are very excited about learning how to grow vegetables and the experiential learning sessions are helping them very much and creating a strong group feeling. Even, there are some participants that only attend to the action methods part because they cannot attend to the gardening sessions but they won’t miss the exercises to improve social skills.

It is worthy to mention that one of the participants in the course got a job as a gardener in the city council of the city of Zamora during some months. Afterwards, she will re-join the training course and will be able to teach interesting things to her colleagues.

Avoiding too much theory (reduced to a minimum) has been key to motivate the group and to promote the learning process by a learning-by-doing philosophy. Also, the special methodology created has helped very much to solve conflicts and to create an adequate group feeling. They all understand that it is not only about learning things but also learning how to work and collaborate with other people.

Despite of bad weather during the summer months in Slovenia, with diligence and persistence the OZARA group managed to raise tasteful crops. Most of them were used to prepare lunch for the HORGANIC participants. The goal is to prepare healthy homemade vegetables using lots of imagination and creativity.

During the training, the Slovenian participants are very active and work with each other closely, but learners are especially looking forward to working at the garden. Unfortunately the winter has almost begun and the work in the garden will not be possible in the future months. With certainty we can say, that the Slovenian team has gained new knowledge and experiences, and with each session we are trying to strengthen them by being actively involved in the training. Even more, through working

activities it has been clearly shown that their social and communication skills have been strengthened.

Participants have learned how to work in a group and realised that for successful work cooperation and help among members of the group is needed.

The participants wish to continue with gardening also after the conclusion of the project. Despite relocation to other premises, we will try to continue with some of the activities, so that we stay in touch with gardening and consequently stay motivated to grow as much vegetables as possible at home.

But also now, every now and then we remember the times spent at the garden when having the experiential learning sessions (when we got into the role of a flower or other plant). The sessions are rarely attended by all the participants since always someone is missing due to illness or annual leave, but still we enjoy psychodrama sessions very much. Some topics seem really difficult for us, for example those about misunderstandings and conflicts, because we were never thought about how to act in conflict situations. Therefore we are sometimes still very clumsy, but we are learning and all together we believe, that at the end of the project we will consider many of the problems more manageable than it used to be.

After moving to the new location we finally came to an ideal place for implementing action methods, because we have much more space available for walking around during the exercises. And the group can now finally make a circle, as big as it should be. More space also brings great benefits to the quality of psychodrama implementation. To be concrete, involuntary closeness does not influence people well, especially in situations and topics that are brought up by experiential learning sessions.

The HORGANIC course went on in Germany with a great success and it is great to see the positive results in the garden and in the sessions. As already mentioned in the last newsletter, the trainers and trainees faced due to the mild winter in this part of Germany a lot of challenges. A positive result was that plants were developing and growing faster than normally this time of the year. But due to the mild winter pests as worms, snails and other vermin were increasing as well‌ Well, it can be seen as a positive feedback that the snails, vermin and vermicular liked the taste of the vegetables. The rainy august brought the next challenges as plants couldn’t grow well, but despite of all these challenges the trainers and trainees had to face, a lot of vegetables were harvested and brought to the CJD kitchen, especially the harvest of the tomatoes, onions and beans have been very high in quantity.

These positive side effects definitely made the trainers and trainees proud on the work done and the people working in the kitchen happy to get vegetables which were just harvested close by the same morning. As the first snowflakes have now already fallen, the trainers and trainees are currently preparing the plants and boxes for the winter and the cold temperatures.

SUPERVISORY VISITS TO THE HORGANIC COURSE, WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY?

Visiting the trainers and trainees in Spain and Slovenia was next to the idea of supervision and giving hints to improve an overall exchange of experiences made in the running pilot courses in terms of special conditions for plants, experiences with the participants, recipes for harvested fruits, etc. The supervision was therefore for the supervising expert taken as a chance as well to get ideas and hints for conducting the sessions in the own country. So seeing the trainers and trainees working in the garden in Spain and Slovenia and as it can be seen on the pictures with great success, following the sessions in an enthusiastic way in all countries do give an overall positive feedback to the developed curriculum and the idea of the project.

About the experiential learning sessions, in the three partner’s institutions, it was very impressing that the group members take part in the group sessions with great enthusiasm and satisfaction. The trainers in all groups have very warm and supportive contact with participants in the training groups.

We detected some mistakes, basically the same in the three piloting centers for experiential learning: trainers did not invest enough time in the first and last part of the session, that is to say, in the warming up part (“pulse of the group”) at the beginning of each session, and ending the meeting with some

self-reflection and feedback from the participants. It is very important that the trainer shows personal attention to everyone, speaking in the circle, in order to create a safe environment and to promote the cohesion of the group. We realized that the rhythm of the session used to be too fast; it would be better that the trainers slow down and invest as much time as required to each of the groups.

Participants must have enough time to share their feelings and experiences in a relaxed environment and to feel that everyone in the group is listening their sharing. This could help them to realize that they are important persons and deserve attention.

Apart from this, the general impression of the experts about the three pilot centers for experiential learning is highly positive, trainers are very motivated and hardworking, following the instructions included in the manual and adapting to the specific needs in the group they are working with. Even, they are starting to see some positive changes in some of the participants, improving their soft skills and being more open and active, a big change in their daily life. We are very hopeful about final results of the experiential learning sessions and willing to share with you this valuable feedback.

This project has been funded with support of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig subprogramme, from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Contact: Laura MartĂ­nez proyectos2@intras.es You will find updated information about HORGANIC project in http://horganic.intras.es Horganic