Last week, Clingendael Academy in coordination with UN Women successfully completed the Training of Trainers (ToT) on mediation for a selected group of women from the Libyan Women Network for Peacebuilding.

The programme was aimed at enlarging and strengthening peacebuilding abilities within the Libyan society. These selected women that participated in the ToT have grown in both the knowledge and skills on negotiation and mediation over the last year. They were part of previous trainings provided by the Clingendael Academy in cooperation with UN Women on these topics.

In this online 5-day training the participants have been taught skills that are essential for a trainer to set up and deliver a training and how to work with groups. Different working formats were put into practice, such as steering participants through interactive exercises and guided discussion. In subgroups they practiced with different learning styles and getting and giving feedback on various training elements they developed themselves. They certainly learned and improved the essentials of being a trainer in the areas of peacebuilding.

​​​​​​​Throughout the training the participants expressed how much they found and strengthened their confidence in being a trainer. One of the women in the group highlighted:  

‘this Clingendael training approach of training is new to what I know, I learned that I can bring different learning modes into my training lesson plan’.

Another participant acknowledged this and emphasized the growth of her capabilities:

‘Our skills are getting reinforced, now I have a reservoir of tools I can use, I feel much more confident to conduct trainings myself!’

The coming months Clingendael Academy will continue to support the participants through an online coaching trajectory in which the participants can consult their own-built training programme and can eventually reflect on their given training. They can continue to disseminate their knowledge within their communities by providing their own negotiation and mediation trainings.

This ToT complements the Mediation training conducted by Clingendael Academy in January 2021 and the Negotiation training of 2020, both with UN Women. It was developed with the goal of preparing experienced women peacebuilders to sustainably spread and grow mediation capacities within their conflict affected communities as trainers themselves.