How to Use this Workshop Guide

We organized this guide in a way that allows you to incorporate the popular education spiral into your workshops and overall programming. It begins with icebreaker and introduction activities and continues with workshops that support bringing in new information and raising awareness. Components of Popular Education such as: identifying patterns, strategizing and planning for action, and reflecting on practice are built into most of the activities. We believe that grounding workshops in the popular education approach supports girls’ empowerment. We recommend that you read through Sections two and three of the Amplify Manual before doing the workshops in order to become familiar with facilitating with a popular education approach.

While this guide provides concrete activities and workshops, please feel free to use them as inspirational templates or to adapt the activity according to the specific needs of your girls’ group. We believe that the process of facilitating workshops is more important than the actual outcome. Facilitation is best when it is flexible and fluid and adapts to the needs of the group. When new issues arise, facilitators should try to support the new momentum to foster new, and sometimes, unplanned learnings. Workshop structures can be adjusted to suit the age of participants and their specific or special needs.

The heart of this guide focuses on leading while learning with your girls’ group. We have found it is important that everyone (no matter how many years of experience they may have) approaches girls’ empowerment work as a learner, not as an “expert,” that imparts knowledge to others. Below, we have provided some tips to consider while facilitating. They are meant to help you understand the limitations and objectives of activities, as well as offer suggestions for how to facilitate intense conversations while maintaining spacer spaces.