The civic leader’s school, which took place in Kharkiv, included a public communication training led by IRMI experts.
It would be fair to refer to the workshop conducted by Aleksey Soldatenko as the ” training on refutation “. No, PR is not about producing fakes, selfies and ribbon-cutting, but about the ability to see public interest and organize fully-fledged activities. No, communication is not about a monologue of a politician, but about a dialogue, a desire to hear a different opinion and about the ability to hold a debate. No, effective communication and communication noise are different things. No, nobody owes you anything, you want support – make your idea interesting. This is what they learned from the training, getting into simulated situations.
Everything is like in real life. Want some support – go ahead, present the idea and get the other person interested in the short 5 minutes. It seems simple, but the time is over, and yet another potential meeting has not been scheduled for you. The time runs out even faster in the real life. How to behave? A fun game of conveying information when you get an unexpected finale makes you wonder how to control it and how to work with the team.
The discussions that followed had the purpose to convince the participants that new faces were not a goal in itself. Society has a serious demand for new governance patterns, for a dialogue and for information access. And if you want to be active in politics and chose to work in the public sector as your long-term career, public methods of management must be mastered.
High praise from participants gives hope that they have accepted the idea.
“Promoting Government Accountability in Eastern Ukraine” is implemented by Kharkiv-based regional non-state organization – the Association of Private Employers – supported by National Endowment for Democracy.
