Coaching has greatly impacted Madagascar according to Ravo who has been both coaching, and training coaches, for some years now. He can really see the difference it makes.  He has watched the young city coordinators develop their call under his coaching and was particularly pleased to see it help them finish their young leader training. As he says “ They would not have finished their training without the coaching; it helped with timing, and encouragement, and focused the prayer to get through so many subjects.”  He says he has seen coaching do great things in the leaders since they took up their posts in the various cities.  “ They take more initiative, reaching their goals and facing the challenges, compared to when they were in Antsirabe with me,” he says “They are more dependent on God too.”  The young co ordinators are themselves coaching 15 key leaders and learning more of the value of coaching in getting the job done.

One particularly wonderful outcome of using coaching has been that Mirana, a young woman who heads up the work in Ambositra, has achieved an amazing amount of progress in her months there, drawing churches into partnership with YFC, developing 11 radio presenters in 4 different radio stations in Ambositra (running a one hour weekly programme on young people), developing 3 dance group leaders and a music group and developing boards in the area.  Mirana has received regular coaching and achieved significantly because of it.  God has blessed the ministry of this young woman, over the last two years, and she is now training in coaching,  and coaching others into their calling in Him.

A two-day coaching workshop before GA is designed to help leaders understand coaching and gain skills to use in their day to day ministry lives.

It is available to all national directors and board chairs and, in fact, to anyone attending GA who has not already attended a YFC coaching workshop.

Participants will all receive a 101 Coaching book to read before the workshop, and at the workshop they will receive two days of training plus a 101 handbook with tools, resources and information about the 5 R’s of coaching.

The cost for all of this will be only $99 including all food and accommodation, staying at the beautiful La Quinta Hotel on the Friday and Saturday night before conference.  The workshop will be held at the YFCI office.  Transport to and from the office and transport to the Red Lion Hotel on Sunday for GA will all be covered within the price of the workshop.

To register….. all you need to do is go online to GA registration and fill in your details for the coaching workshop when you register for GA. Please note this is a Level One training with the opportunity to extend this to Level Two  when this is available.

OUR REGULAR COACH TRAINING IN YFC

YFC currently offers two levels of coaching training:

Level One
This is an introduction to coaching delivered via a workshop. Participants will have  read the Coaching 101book before the workshop and will receive the 101 Handbook when they get there. Participants will learn and practice the basic skills of coaching and receive foundational understanding and skills to help them use coaching techniques with their ministry, staff and volunteer relationships etc. They will receive some tools and paper templates for writing session summaries.  This training will help participants value coaching, understand the importance of being coached and use some coaching skills day to day. It is not sufficient training to qualify participants as coaches.

Level Two- Qualified Coaches
At the 1st workshop we will be offering some participants the opportunity to go on and complete the 9-month training course. Participants who continue will have 9 further sessions with a Coach/Mentor, learn about and join the CoachNet web site, coach 2 people under supervision for 6 months and do a 360-degree online  assessment. They will have a further 2-day workshop and become qualified YFC coaches. They will be able to train others and multiply coaches. Our aim remains to get at least one qualified coach in each of our YFC nations. To retain their CoachNet/YFC qualification, they will need to remain registered on the CoachNet website for a further two years following their training.  They will also need to complete a further 2 x 360 degree assessments during this period.

Africa is spreading its wings with coaching.  Recently Chris and Linda Harding were privileged to teach at two of the workshops in the eastern region and to be there as another workshop was planned for the southern region.  The African trainers were amazing and the stories coming from those who had coached for the six months were very encouraging.

One of the Ethiopian trainee coaches said he had discovered his vocation ‘ to help others through coaching ‘ and it was evident that the Ethiopian attendees, who included board members and staff, had all seen the great potential that coaching had to transform lives and programmes in Ethiopia. We were struck by the determination of the team with their coaching and their desire to pass it on.  Alemtshay Yemane, the national director, has done a fantastic job of coach mentoring around a dozen coach trainees at the same time.  There are now a good number of coach mentors for the next round of training in this nation. We are hoping to see coaching in Ethiopia become like Injera – the pancake they have with every meal – turning up everywhere !

In Kenya the staff were up to their third wave of passing on the skills of coaching as they worked with staff from Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. They are all doing a great job of producing more coaches to be used in all sorts of ways in their work with YFC.  They have so appreciated the chance to learn new skills and watch the changes happening in their coachees. Grace Ojiambo who is their current leader hopes to make coaching her focus in the years to come as she sees the need to develop young leaders and pioneer new work in the area.

The Southern Area

The southern area of Africa is planning a new push for coaching in their area.  They are seeking some funding from a European nation to begin a process of developing more coaches throughout their 10 nations. They are hoping for a start date in November where 30 participants will have an introduction to coaching and 10 of these will coach the other twenty for six months.

This will mean that by the middle of next year there will be 10 accredited coaches and twenty people who will have experienced coaching in these nations (some of who will take up the challenge to become coaches in the next round).

With this model the region hopes to produce a coaching culture which will use these skills to great effect and fast track the region in its development of leadership and pioneering programmes.

It is an exciting time and they would value our prayers.  If you are from this region, contact E.J. or Gert van den Bos from Lesotho for details.