By Yu Yu Aung
At age 17, high school graduate
Khum Hein Tet Soe couldn’t decide what future to pursue. Should he try to be a business
man, or an information technology specialist, or something completely
different?
He checked out private schools
that might teach him useful skills, but he couldn’t find the right one. The
schools were expensive, and the quality of teaching didn’t seem to match the cost.
Distance education college wasn’t a solution either.
In early 2017, the young man
spotted an advertisement seeking volunteers to take part in an adolescent-led
drug awareness campaign.
It piqued his interest; he had
always liked the sound of volunteer work, and he knew that drugs were a problem
among youth. He decided to apply to take part in a training.
There, he discovered that drug
use among children and youth was an even bigger issue than he had thought. He also
learned skills in working together with others as part of a team, and he grew more
comfortable speaking in front of people.
It felt good to be learning how
to contribute to society, and Khum Hein Tet Soe was excited to be later assigned
to shadow as a facilitator with a team conducting a 21st century
skills training in Sittwe, Rakhine State.
The training was part of the
UPSHIFT program that UNICEF began implementing in Myanmar in 2017, supported by
Pearson.
Under the program, adolescents are mobilized into groups and provided
with trainings to equip them with 21st century skills such as communication,
collaboration and team work, problem solving and creativity.
Khum Hein Tet Soe admitted that
he felt a bit scared when he studied the teaching materials ahead of his first
experience as a shadow trainer.
In school, he had learned directly
from a teacher, and from reading books. In the training, everything would be
very different—teaching and learning would be carried out through games and
activities, including simulated ‘real life’ encounters.
That lively approach might make
facilitation look easy, but this wasn’t true, he found.
“For example, we needed to know
how to adjust the agenda to fit with the participants. We needed to help the
group members be happy, so they would engage in activities. And we needed to
know how to build friendships and team spirit,’’ he noted.
Being a good facilitator meant
becoming the best version of himself. “I needed to behave well to win respect.
I needed to choose the right words so the group members would understand
everything, especially when I facilitated the learning points after an
activity.”
After successfully navigating that
early steep learning curve, Khum Hein Tet Soe started to work as a
co-facilitator on more skills trainings in UNICEF’s Adolescent Engagement
Program.
Along the way, he is finding that
he is continuing to learn and teach at the same time. “I’m not only helping
others to learn—my own skills are improving too.”
It’s satisfying, he said, to see
that the skills he and other adolescents are learning have results in real
life—including the fact that some of those who have participated in trainings
have since decided to set up an active Sittwe Adolescent Network.
In his own life, he believes that
he’s better prepared now for any path in life he may choose in future, as the
skills from the trainings are useful in the workplace and in every day life.
Also, his horizons have expanded.
The program has given him an opportunity to meet many adolescents from
different places, with different views and experiences. Listening to their
thoughts, and getting insights into their lives and situations, has expanded
his horizons and made him more accepting of diversity.
He is more confident to tackle
anything that might come his way, even old norms that can be challenging.
In Myanmar culture, respect for
seniority means that it can be hard for a young person to teach someone who is older.
Khum Hein Tet Soe worried about
that once. But he has overcome that concern and other fears—by reminding himself
that if he is skilled, and confident, there is no need to worry.
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