Day 1 of UPSHIFT Workshop
As a follow-up of introduction to UPSHIFT Programme to the students of Samtse College of Education (SCE), fifty students from two programmes of Bachelor of Arts in Social Work (BASW) and Bachelor of Education in Information Technology Education, English, History, and Geography (BEd IT & BEd Eng/His/Geo) attended the UPSHIFT workshop on 26th August 2023 facilitated by Ms. Sonam Zangmo, faculty of Psychology from the Department of Arts and Humanities Education, and Mr. Ugyen Dorji, faculty of Mathematics from the Department of STEM Education. The facilitators attended the Training of Trainers workshop at the College of Science and Technology, Rinchening, Phuentsholing in June 2023. The next two workshops for the UPSHIFTERs at the College will take place on two consecutive Saturdays (2nd September and 9th September). Sixty students have registered to participate in the workshop via Google Forms. However, ten students were not able to attend the first day of the workshop due to ongoing endemic – conjunctivitis, and viral flu.
The workshop aims to provide essential knowledge and skills on social innovation and social entrepreneurship. By the end of the workshop, the participants will be able to build skills and opportunities to solve problems and make life easier for people in the community. The workshop has four sessions, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The duration of each session is one and a half hours. Some of the topics covered in the workshop are community mapping, stakeholder mapping, goal setting, prototyping, thinking creatively, and planning resources. The delivery of the session is mainly done through active collaboration and communication.
The participants reported finding the sessions interactive, interesting, and engaging. Kinzang Wangmo from Bachelor of Arts in Social Work said that “it helped her to open her eyes to different spectrums”. Pema Yeazoer from the same course mentioned, “As a participant, I was urged to think beyond my normal thinking. The session was engaging as we were doing group work and a sense of camaraderie was there”. Sonam Pemo from BEd IT shared that “this type of platform would help the youth to come up with their ideas and innovation to help our community and country”.
