June 12-15, 2006, The Ruckus Society partnered with Training for Change to bring a four day Counter-Recruitment Training for Trainers (CRT4T) to twenty core regional and national staff and volunteers of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
The first two days of the gathering presented direct education methodology and training tools. Direct education empowers people to discover their own expertise and that of the group, rather than transmitting trainer’s knowledge.
Following the two-day direct education skill-building section of the CRT4T, we modeled several of the curriculums developed for AFSC’s new 230-page counter-recruitment trainer’s manual, written by The Ruckus Society and Training for Change. Participants had plenty of practice time to learn to take home and present these eight new workshops in their communities. One participant wrote, "I feel like I know training as a science, but I learned from you to make it an art."
The gathering left participants feeling more unified as AFSC staff, more confident in their ability to train groups in their region, and eager to kick off a national counter-recruitment campaign lead by AFSC!