The south participants held the first educational workshop this year, in Bergen. The workshop was with many young and energetic young leaders who are in the NMF Peer Education Programme from all over the country in Norway.

The goal for this workshop was to equip the peer educators with tools to make the learning environment in banding activities more inclusive.  This was not a very long workshop, but with the energy and eagerness to learn in this three-day workshop, we managed to dish out a lot of information from the peer educator guides and activity library. We strongly believe that the youth is the future movement in the banding activity, so it is important for us to make sure that we give them relevant information to keep the chain of inclusion going in the Norwegian school bands.

After this productive workshop with various kinds of information and new skills learned, the peer educators could bring home a written guide that will help them to create a more inclusive learning environment. The guide is written by Ragnhild Sandbakk and Christian Larsen. The guide based on planning tools, teaching skills and leadership skills. The guide itself is written in Norwegian, so it was not an easy task for us South Africans go through with the peer educators, but with the help of the PULSE extension team Anne Oksfjellelv, Katja Furnes, Christian Digranes and Ketil Vestrum Einarsen, it made the process easier.

The workshop it was not only based on the theoretical part of the guide, but we also had a practical part that was to play music together and make sure that everyone is included as since we also had non-musical participants. During the sessions, we managed to include non-musicians by singing, dancing and also playing p-buzz. This was a perfect example to demonstrate how we include everyone to experience a sense of belonging.

Written by: Adrian Mackay and Chief Zwane

Photos  by: Denis Mashabane