TWI
(Training Workshops International) for children is a non-profit organization
working in the Balkans. Every year they organize camps for children and
orphanages in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. They are dedicated in
helping the people of the Balkan have better life and to help resolve
disagreements between some Balkan countries. This kind of information and much more
can be found on their blog or fb page.
How
the journey of Bobby Houser did from Springfield to the Balkans became an
organization…
They
started in 1996 in Bosnia, and now they are much more developed than what they
used to be. They feed the children who are hungry, they donate clothing to
those who don’t have proper clothes, and they never separate the people on
Muslim, Orthodox or have problems with nationality. And believe it or not, they
do not get any salary for this.
The
TWI Workshop in Negotino
This weekend, between 7th and 8th of July,
they had a short visit in Macedonia. For our great honor, they came in Negotino
for their first time. But the last year, they had a workshop in Sveti Nikole.
This time they had Leadership Workshop, organized to teach the young generation
how to become a great leader and how to manage with your feelings when you come
up on a stage and start talking without feeling nervous and without having
stress problems The person who organized part of the activities together with
the members from Negotino was Lolita Ristova, they gave their best in making
the others feel comfortable during the seminar. So, as we said there were
groups from Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo and the American group.
Bobby
Houser, the president of this organization, and her group together with the
rest of the participants on this seminar, came on Saturday, 7 July. One hour
after the arrival, they immediately started with the Workshop and got friendly
with everyone. The group was formed by, as we said, Bobby Houser, the
interpreters Lisbeth Houser Willis, Drew Morrisroe, Patricia Walton, Ed Nace,
and Audra Hession. They were all had some special roll in the Workshop. Ed Nace
was the icebreaker and his task was to prepare the members of the seminar for
the long day. He used some methods that helped the members start thinking,
talking and cooperate with each other. So, the first thing they needed to do
was to describe their country in one single word. For the Serbians the word was:
the hospitality and everybody agreed with that. For the Bosnians it was:
multicultural. For the guests from Kosovo it was: trustful inspired by helping people in no
matter what kind of danger. For us, Macedonians it was our traditional dance “Тешкото” (Teshkoto), and for the Americans, the word
was diversity.
After
Ed’s Icebreaker, Drew Morrisroe was talking about setting a goal. He was explaining
how we need to make difference between a goal and a vision. According to him,
if you wake up with a goal, write it down and make sure it’s a smart one. For a
smart goal you need to make it specific, measurable, attainable, relevant or
realistic and time oriented. Of course in your life you will be faced with the
7 Daily enemies that will stop your goals, but your task is to be very persistent,
and for that you need a big motivation in your life.
Next
was Audra Hession, with her advices how to prepare an excellent presentation.
For her it is very important to know the audience, the room and the site where
the presentation will take place. Writing the presentation may be difficult
because it needs to be short and very clear so those who are listening to you
know what you’re talking about. So, she made a little exercise in which the
participants needed to make a 2 minutes presentation by choosing one of the two
topics: Why I think that you need to hairе me? And the second one was: why I decided to study
what I want? The results were satisfying and after that we took a break and had
dinner together. 
The
next day, starting at 10 A.M we had a presentation about Stress Management,
presented by Patricia Walton, a women that has had more than 30 years of
experience with medicine. She described the signs that shows if we are feeling
stressed and how can we manage that by doing things that we enjoy doing, like doing
exercises, listening to music, helping someone or preparing something for
someone. She told us that our stress can really influence on our personal or
professional life. 
At
noon the seminar finished and it was time to hand out the certificates to the
members of the seminar. They said, once again, that they had a lovely time and
that they liked our traditional food and that they hope to come again and do
much more activities. After the seminar was over, they went to see our
monastery “St. Gjorgji” and to find out more about its history. 
In
the end, we all had a great lunch and we even had a great time by teaching them
how to dance our Macedonian oro. So, we all hope that next year we will have
the chance to see them again and to have them like guests once more. We have
learnt a lot, and we are prepared now to use that knowledge, thanks to them.
We have this short interview with Bobby Houser, talking about TWI. And do not be confused, Bobby Houser is actually very kind women to give us this information J
Emilija
Petreska
1st view from me :P
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