Recently, our local committee came up with the applications of a local trainers team. Out of our large membership of around a 100 plus members, three of us, Madhuri Kapoor, Jennifer Sung and I have been chosen as the local trainers of AIESEC Delhi University, our local chapter. Last week, as local trainers, we attended a national conference organised for the trainers from local chapters all over India. This was a small conference of about twenty-five members, but I feel that if there had been any more members, we wouldn’t have had the personal touch and interactions that we did. The National Trainers Conference was facilitated by our own team of national trainers (NTT). These five individuals, all of whom currently hold, or have previously held senior positions in their own local chapters, were brought together to train the new batch of local trainers.

During this conference, we were given sessions on how to deliver effective and long lasting sessions when we got back to our own local committee’s. We were explained the importance of effective communication, research, preparation, visualisation, evaluation and most importantly putting across a point that could be taken back by the audience to make them more productive and efficient. On the last day of an intensive yet fun three day conference, we were paired and asked to give a mock session on any topic. Sitting, listening and taking notes are great ways of learning, but nothing beats learning by doing. It was only in these mock sessions, when the applicability of the sessions we had been given so far was clear to us did we understand the difficulty with which our seniors had delivered their sessions to us. It was only by observing each group, pointing out their mistakes and sensing our own did we actually learn. Personally, I enjoyed my mock session a little too, much making me realise that would, in fact, love to be the trainer that I was so anxious in seeing myself become.

Today, when I gave my first official session at the bi-weekly general body meeting, I was extremely content and confident with what I was doing and felt my usual companion of public speaking, fear and/or anxiety quietly slip away!

Hard work and patience are integral qualities that must be inculcated for someone to be a successful trainer. We saw it and we experienced it. This conference and our facilitators had a bountiful of knowledge to share with us, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all that they did. Without the right combination of people, this conference wouldn’t have been as memorable as it was. I would like to thank AIESEC in Delhi University for giving me the opportunity to grow, create, learn and emerge as a leader. I am a global leader. I am an AIESECer!