TeachSurfingNew Success stories
Success Story: Maureen K.M. Panagiotou's Journey of Empowerment and Storytelling
Maureen Murori Panagiotou, a Kenyan-born journalist, has long believed in the power of storytelling to inspire and connect people. In 2017, she relocated to Cyprus, where she found solace and motivation in the stories of those who, like her, faced unique challenges living away from their home countries. Inspired by these experiences, Maureen published Our Untold Truths in 2024, a collection of narratives from over 30 women across 14 countries.Driven by the transformative power of shared experiences, Maureen organized her first solo workshop, Empowerment: The Untold Truths We Wish We Knew. With the aim of creating a safe space for reflection, resilience, and collective healing, the workshop allowed participants to not only listen but actively share their own personal stories.Maureen’s workshop fostered a sense of vulnerability and connection, as attendees opened up about their personal struggles, many for the first time. Through storytelling, group discussions, and reflection exercises, participants walked away with a renewed sense of empowerment and hope. The overwhelming engagement and the participants’ readiness to be vulnerable validated the workshop's impact, and Maureen is determined to continue building on this success.Going forward, Maureen envisions scaling the workshop, providing even more opportunities for people to share their stories and find healing. With her passion for storytelling and personal growth, she hopes to inspire others to do the same through her book, Our Untold Truths, and her newsletter, which continue to offer insights and encouragement to a growing community.Join Maureen's journey and subscribe to her newsletter today! Together, let's uncover more untold truths and build a stronger, more connected community.
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More Success stories
Cameron Hawke-Smith
I chose to go to Nepal because I wanted to find a country as unlike Britain as I could. That I certainly achieved. I chose to volunteer because I wanted not to see the country as a tourist sees it, but to understand it as someone living and working there. The two placements were an outstanding opportunity to do just this. The first placement was very positive: I learnt how people live on almost nothing, coped with daily cuts in electricity, shortage of water, and political shutdowns, but always managed to stay calm and happy. The second placement gave me an entirely different set of insights. I had perhaps thought as a westerner that Buddhism had some of the answers to our global problems. I still think there is something in this, but I learnt also that even the most idealistic institutions have their shortcomings. We are all human.
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Wolf’s Success Story: “We helped students succeed in UX/UI Design”
I sat down with Wolf from Leipzig for an online interview, and he told me about his experiences while he was a volunteer teacher at one of our partner organizations, the Redi School of Digital Integration. Wolf has a diploma in Communication Design, and today, he spends most of his professional time in the digital sphere as a User Experience Designer (aka UX Designer).Wolf gave a small group of young international students an online course, a detailed “UX/UI Design Basics” crash course from September to December last year. His students were equally interested in design and IT and were enthusiastic about learning more about the topic without any previous knowledge. He tells me that the course’s initiative was giving students an entry course to become professionals. For the first time, Wolf became a volunteer teacher, and he found the opportunity that presented itself a valuable experience.When teaching and giving homework to the students, he prepared exercises with tools like Figma and customized the course theme to his taste. He made sure to give students practical knowledge as the course’s end goal was to present and use their newly acquired knowledge in the field and to design interfaces and apps that are easy to use. Wolf said he enjoyed teaching because he felt knowledgeable in UX/UI design. He believes that ultimately, he managed everything well, even teaching, and no one was confused - which is a considerable achievement for someone new to teaching.Wolf happily remembered the highlights of his brief volunteer teaching career: “It was good to see students come up with ideas of their own by using their UX knowledge to create something permanent.” Wolf mentioned that it was vital that he could encourage, communicate with, and instruct students on how to do things better and concurrently provide them with knowledge. The communication within the class was always seamless, and students could reach out to him when necessary. Wolf also remembered that internal communication with other teachers was well-managed, and their “Teachers Hub” included essential links and resources for all teachers.Wolf would have improved: "Time management, which is often a challenge in teaching, especially when much practice is done, but it got better with experience.” He added that he could have prepared a more sophisticated presentation with more time. However, Redi School provided all teaching materials; thus, only his input and insights were needed during teaching.After going through the advantages and minor disadvantages of volunteer teaching, Wolf told me that he would personally advise others to volunteer to teach and give workshops. His main advice is to present on a topic that you feel confident in because, in general, what you will do is knowledge-share, which requires expertise, and you have to learn how to approach the audience in the best way possible. So, he suggested that being fully committed to one’s workshop topic is pivotal to giving a successful workshop. In short, “teach the topic you are most passionate about and have experience in, and your students will appreciate and benefit from your knowledge and enthusiasm.”Wolf concluded our talk by saying he would do his course again if he found time. According to him, pride is the byproduct of being a volunteer teacher because, in a way, he contributed and shared his knowledge with students who benefitted from his and Redi School’s toolkit.Taking pride in becoming a volunteer educator is one thing that we are very content about because teaching others and knowledge-sharing make both sides satisfied. Our main priority at TeachSurfing is to ensure quality education for everyone so that students and educators can profit from knowledge transfer. The most outstanding outcome is when educators and students are equally happy.Online interview conducted on the 28th of June 2023 on behalf of TeachSurfing.
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English Master Training
I hosted this event a number of times and created a difference in my students' lives by making them confident about themselves and by helping them learn English to communicate with the world.We used fun games to inspire Speaking and remove hesitation which is a common barriers for students of most English learners۔
read more ...Dj/Musical trainer for migrants and youths
Another exiting experience of training I've been in involved in for some months was the "Djing workshop" managed by the social association "Odissea" in Lucca.The workshop was aimed at unaccompanied minor migrants mostly from sub-Saharan Africa housed in the Odyssey Cooperative's reception facility. In addition to them, other local youth and people with disabilities also participated in the course.The goal of the workshop was to attempt horizontal socialization among different categories of youth subjects through the sharing of knowledge and musical techniques related to the art of DJing.The workshop, which lasted about 3 months, turned out to be a success and culminated in a final event in which all participants made a colorful audience that had come there for the occasion dance.The methodology of the workshop was primarily based on mutual sharing of musical tastes and knowledge, this was the central tool that fostered socialization and mutual intimate knowledge among all participants who immediately blended into a compact and friendly group. Secondly, the focus was on the techniques of mixing music, through the instrumentation made available by yours truly as the course leader and teacher.In a context of social isolation in the area, the workshop was a particularly valuable moment for the boys because it put them in a position to be able to share with the outside world a part of their intimate background through music. What passed through the workshop period was thus not the simple song offered to the rest of the group but a framework of personal and collective stories, memories and affections evoked by the individual song. This allowed the cementing of a deep and lasting relationship between the participants and myself, breaking the monotony of the daily conditions of humanitarian reception in Italy.
read more ...Language/legal trainer for migrants
One of the most successful training experiences I carried out took place in Pisa during my bachelor studies.At the time I was volunteering in a local cultural center called "Circolo Agorà" which, through its library, spaces and special training courses, is active in the area for a free sharing of knowledge and skills towards disadvantaged social categories.With them I undertook in-depth training as a teacher of Italian for foreigners and as a legal desk assistant for migrants. After about three months of preparatory course I began together with other young colleagues to work as a volunteer in collective Italian classes with foreigners of all ages mainly from Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.The course that developed with the classes, having overcome initial difficulties, soon turned out to be a mutual cultural learning experience. Methodologically, together with my fellow trainers, we therefore decided to appeal to the generative cultural differences that existed in the group of students as tools for dialogue, exchange and sharing aimed at practicing the Italian language.The result was not only a fluid learning of the language outside the rigid structures of cathedratic lessons, but above all the birth of a laboratory of mutual cultural contamination where through concrete experiences (such as moments of collective cooking in which each person offered the group a typical recipe from his or her land cooked all together) friendships and bonds were created that I still cultivate today and that have helped the insertion into the local territory of the unaccompanied migrants who attended the course.
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My Story!
Hello there, I am Qassem Alhomayyer. Last year, I had the chance to get to know e-VELP, where I started the volunteer educator training. I was already at that time a trainer, but I have never created my own workshop. Whilst doing my training I’ve learned a lot about group dynamics, non-formal education and more. At the end of the training, I finished making my own concept for my first workshop.My workshop addresses men with migration backgrounds in Germany and adresses topics like Masculinity, discrimination and racism. I had the opportunity to offer my workshop within my work as a trainer.In the workshop were men with migration background. In the beginning we got to know each other. Then we talked about masculinity, about which images are spread in society about the "real man" and where such images come from.After that, we discussed about the different roles that people have in different situations and what expectations are attached to the specific roles.In the last step, we exchanged ideas about the topic of racism. Many participants shared their personal stories and experiences.I was very happy that there was a very comfortable atmosphere in the workshop. I was also very touched by the fact that the participants empowered each other when they shared their experiences with racism.That was my experience with implementing my own workshop. I currently feel empowered to offer even more workshops, exchange with people and share my knowledge with others.
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