We ran our third Shine Outreach Workshop of the year on Thursday. Seven people joined us, six of whom were from Equal Education, an NGO campaigning for libraries in schools.
We spent the day talking about what we know, from working with volunteers and parents, to setting up literacy centres. We shared the skills of Paired and Shared Reading, and conducted the workshop using the Nancy Kline 'Time to Think' methodology. We love this kind of professional sharing, and recognise the power of transferring skills to other organisations. The possibilities are endless.
On Saturday morning we had four Equal Education visitors attend our Parent Workshop, two of whom were parents. This kind of collaboration is yet another way in which we can get our ideas and methods out there, to harder to reach communities.
The feedback we received from Equal Education was incredibly positive. Brad, an Equal Education visitor, commented on the generosity of the Shine Centre. He mentioned that while they have attended training sessions with several other NGOs, it is rare to find an organisation that shares its information so openly and willingly. But at Shine we believe in sharing: we have done a lot of research in the area of literacy, and we want to save others the blood, sweat and tears of having to start from scratch. To us, it makes all the sense in the world to be open and giving with what we have learnt. It is all about the greater good and passing it forward.
