Training center

The Friends By Nature training center, a school for young community leaders, has opened its doors for the new year! Meetings will take place once a month, on the last Thursday of every month between 10:00 and 14:00. Each meeting will deal with the community leader's place in the community’s annual process and assist him in setting goals and implementing community objectives. 

Why did we choose to establish a training center?
Our way of life is determined by our culture, which organizes our lives even if we are unaware of it (Giertz, 1990). This we infer from our understanding that personal and professional identity develops in accordance with a socio-cultural context and is thereby influenced by that very-same context within which it develops; alongside the fact that community leaders live and operate in a certain cultural environment – and furthermore that this environment bears a meaningful significance to their social endeavors.

Thus, a training program that aims to work on improving identity, be it as good as it may be, is not enough, unless it is in a context that gives it meaning. By this, we mean that the training should be an integral part of the program. A training environment that enables as such relies on two key components : One, understanding the cultural context wherein one is operating and its impact on the development of professional identity; the other, opening a channel of dialogue regarding the significance of one’s professional activities within his/her community. Such an environment serves as a learning community in which a joint effort is invested in understanding the elements of personal identity, professional experiences, weakness and strength, and so on. This learning community is actually an “action community” (Wenger, 1998) wherein learning itself is primarily via the process of open discussions regarding the meaning of endeavors and its connection with one’s theoretical knowledge.