Previous participants take over the Alumni Program

The Alumni/ae Program was launched by the Goethe-Institut in 2015. Its aim is to bring together the alumni/ae of the innumerable Goethe-Institut training courses, both for social get-togethers and also for educational opportunities. While most previous workshops have been conducted by external trainers, this November two parallel trainings will be held by two alumni/ae.

The “Alumni Exchange Series” workshops will take place in December. The workshops will be conducted in the run-up to the annual event of the “Dialogue & Transition” program. Participants of the first round registered either for an Origami workshop held by the artist Osama Helmy (known in cultural circles as “Ozoz”) or for a project management seminar by Shaymaa Kadry, founder and manager of the GISR Institution for Survey Research. The trainers responded to an invitation sent out to the alumni/ae, giving them the possibility to hold their own workshops.

Learning from each other

Ozoz is a performance artist who has used origami in both his performances and as a training aid. He was a participant in the Civic Education Conference which was held in Tunisia this year. That was his first contact with the Alumni Program. “I like the idea of people learning from each other”, he says. “I was particularly pleased that the group had many participants who work in cultural centres and NGOs. So I wanted to give a taste of the areas of application and the history of origami.” His workshop began with a short icebreaker where paper airplanes were used! After a short outline of the history of the Japanese art of Origami, the time came to learn all about folding.
 
“I prefer to follow the advice of the Chinese proverb: teach a man to fish instead of giving him a fish”, says Ozoz. “I like to demonstrate shortcuts, rules and techniques rather than showing people how to make a certain form. I also distributed worksheets and showed the participants how to create their own figures while I support them and give them tips”, he explains. Shady El Anany, a participant in the Origami workshop and artistic leader who works for the National Cinema Institute (attached to the Ministry of Culture), took part in the Alumni/ae Program events for the first time. “Origami is a new art form for me. I particularly liked the idea that the workshop was conducted by alumni, that’s really something new. The concept of mutual learning in the group context was very interesting”, he said. “It’s a good opportunity to exchange experiences, art forms and information, and at the same time expand your network.”

Content from various perspectives

Kadry gave the participants in the workshops step-by-step instructions on how to successfully manage a project: begin with consideration of the project content, time restraints and the quality of the work…up until risk assessment (along with all the details which arise with every aspect). The workshop saw multiple discussions among the participants as to how they could use these steps in their own work. “In this round there were various contributions, from government agencies to the private sector to NGOs. So we were able to view the content from various perspectives”, says Mostafa Khafagi, who participated in a Training-of-Trainers program and has worked as a culture manager with multiple institutions.
 
“What I have taken from this training opportunity is that there is a difference between project management and the management of an institution”, said one participant in the workshop, Ahmed Basha. He also took part in a Training-of-Trainers workshop in the context of the Goethe-Institut’s 2014 Civic Education program and he is active in event organization for cycling networks and the Engineering Society. “Both are often combined. It was important to differentiate that a project has a beginning and an end”. “For me, the definitions were important”, says Mohamed El Sherbiny, an alumnus of the media course “Road to Germany” (which takes place in Germany). “It was helpful to better understand terms like “Project” “Production line” and “Sustainable work”. And also how to achieve goals with the scientific approach of step-by-step planning. The topic “Risk assessment” was also very useful. It’s really beneficial to deepen exploration of the topics through these workshops with the alumni: that means that it’s not just a one-time training, but rather it’s about offering more opportunities to learn and refresh what has already been learned. The hardest part of the process is indeed to use what we learn in our daily work”, Sherbiny  summarises.

Back to Dialogue & Transition