ESN PWr's Local Training Event

The training session lasted two days, and we stayed at a house in a town near the Polish highlands, named Lewin Kłodzki. We prepared this event as a local section from Wrocław University of Science and Technology but our participants came from many different Wrocław's Universities creating a widely diverse small community for the weekend.

The natural surroundings of a place created a tranquil and relaxing mood, which boosted the participants' focus and willingness to study. The residence contained training rooms on the ground floor, making it easily accessible to most people. The training was conducted in English and registration was open to a wide spectrum of participants overcoming the ethnic background.

The training was carried out by ESN Poland alumni, members of ESN Poland's national trainer pool, and Eduk8 members. The daily agenda featured three blocks of workshops from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Sessions completed included project management, problem-solving, public speaking, motivation management, and risk and strategic management. Participants completed a game on Saturday afternoon that tested their problem-solving, teamwork, and creativity. The game concluded with a debriefing led by members of Eduk8. On Sunday, participants attended two sessions covering budgeting and conflict management. Participants were also encouraged and requested to design their growth plans with the help of ESN Poland alumni. 

1.Project Management and problem-solving- During this workshop, participants had the possibility to develop better their soft skills while working in teams, facing up the real-life situations and problems that shape the working environment. Participants were put into an agile environment simulation, which compared their skills at the beginning and end of the training. As expected, the completion time improved by the end of the workshop, which later on also contributed to better communication among the participants influencing the outcomes of the next sessions.

2. Public speaking - through this workshop, participants got a chance to improve their public speaking skills while receiving constructive feedback from the expert. This workshop improved their confidence while presenting the topic, introduced simple conspectus on how to prepare the speech and gave place to the participants to share their tips on how to best prepare to deliver a presentation.

3.Risk and Strategic Management- the training consisted of two parts:

• Theoretical & design, where participants learned the tools for risk & strategic management and then implied it as part of their venture
• Experiential, where participants worked on the delivery of their ideas under pressure in a given timeframe. Participants received feedback and new information constantly from their trainers, which in the end led to presenting the final results, which changed slightly due to introduced circumstances. 
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4.Budgeting- the participants developed hard skills through this workshop with the use of Excel and Google Workspace, while developing their analytical thinking skills to troubleshoot the problems within the budgets. By the end of the workshop, participants had completed a budget for an event, compared it with a real example and created budget guidelines for themselves with the support of ESN Poland’s alumni.

5.Conflict Management - with this workshop, our participants gained knowledge of different ways to resolve conflicts inside and outside their team. The knowledge gained there will improve their teamwork abilities and develop further problem-solving skill.

With the workshops, training, and lead discussion provided for our participants, we achieved, based on the post-evaluation survey, our goals of expanding the knowledge and giving the participants the necessary tools to stand out in the job market. This helped them appear more attractive to the potential employers. We hope to continue this work with the next edition of the project and direct the focus on the current needs of the participants.