Imparting knowledge and raising campaign advocates

My phone rang in the early hours of the night sometime in early January this year. It was my elementary classmate's wife who called, and her request was one I tried very much to decline to no avail. Her sister-in-law, who happened to be a younger sister to my classmate, had asked her to find a medical doctor to serve as a trainer for a campaign she was hosting and championing. First, I had a school examination I was preparing for and told her my contributions could only come in afterwards. Afterwards, I made her realize I could only work with my timing and preferred to be notified long before any scheduling so as to arrange my time appropriately.

Of course, I knew it would be volunteer work since those requesting were students, and thus, I cleared my mind from expecting any incentives. I have engaged in volunteer work in the past, such as outreach that fetched me some tokens as a form of appreciation.

I knew I always had a passion for teaching, one that involved imparting knowledge to others. I was selected to be a trainer amongst other professional colleagues. I accepted the challenge of training advocates for the diagnosis and management of autoimmune disorders. Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to open the floor of the campaign. Initially, I thought we would be given tutoring materials; however, the convener stated that all trainers would have to source materials themselves. My opinion was to have a unified tutoring material where each trainer would be assigned topics to teach and discuss.

I went through available resource materials online and gathered contents to be discussed with the class into Microsoft Word before transferring it to the PowerPoint. I made the design quite attractive and the contents less cumbersome. As much as possible, I made the PowerPoint presentation to be ready much before the date I was supposed to deliver the class. And of course, I submitted a picture of mine, which was added to the flyer as one of the trainers.

Rather than deliver the lecture in a seemingly autocratic manner, I chose to make the class lively by engaging the participants in a form of discussion. My style was to explore the native knowledge and impart what I wanted to teach them in a manner they could easily relate to even through the native knowledge. One thing I realized was that everyone had an idea or opinion that could be explored and navigated in the right direction to serve as a tool both to enhance and disseminate true and accurate information.

The class was lively and I had to hasten up so as to finish the class in due time. I have opportunity for questions and answers and I could feel a lot of enthusiasm from the audience. I expected a good number of their questions especially because they had some misconceptions and inadequate knowledge that needed to be fine tuned.

Though I was not on the platform where the trainees were, a snapshot of their feedback was very encouraging and heartwarming. The convener told me some trainees requested my digits after the interactive sessions also, which she declined. Although I am scheduled to anchor the questions and answer section by Saturday 15th, I had to regrettably cancel as a result of other engagements on the same day.

The convener was so happy that she made the sister-in-law call me to appreciate me and also requested my availability for partnership with the state government, which she was working with when the time comes. I am told a certificate would be issued at the end of the training session for trainers, and I got more feedback even on LinkedIn.

I appreciated the fact that I was available to impact, especially voluntarily, the younger folks, and who knows, better opportunities may be in store.

IMAGE AND SCREENSHOT BY ME

Thank you for reading. I would love to have your comments and contributions.