A Workshop focused on “Setting Goals and make Career Decisions” was held at Padri Vjeko Centre with level five students from the different sectors comprising ICT, Tailoring, Carpentry, and Construction. The content was delivered through a live webinar by David Shindler (www.learningtoleap.co.uk), a career guidance coach from England.

The webinar was moderated by Me (OLIVIER Senga Muhirwa) and Nana Kwadwo Owusu who is a Volunteer Development Worker from Viatores Christi Ireland, also a Ghanaian by nationality.

It was on Saturday, February 18, 2019 at 9:00 where all level five students gathered in the big hall of Kivumu Parish. Nana started by giving a welcome and an overview of the event and told students to follow and listen carefully because the content is so important to them.

Here, there is a summary of the content that David was delivering to our students

He started by talking about his career choices as a student. He didn’t know what he wanted to do for a career when he was 18. His father was a lawyer and, so, to make him happy, he followed his head and went to university to study law and passed his degree.

But he didn’t really want to be a lawyer! He wanted to work in the movies because growing up he loved the cinema. So, he rejected a place at Law School. Instead, he followed his heart and his first job was a film cameraman for a small company. Unfortunately, he was like Mr. Bean and not very good at it! They made him redundant after a year and his dreams were broken.

He did different jobs and met many challenges in his life with ups and downs. He also wrote a book, Learning to Leap: a Guide to Being More Employable, to encourage young people like him to invest in their lifelong learning, and to understand themselves and other people better.

Whatever you decide to do and to be, success and happiness always involves managing yourself well and having good relationships with people.

1. Chance, Choice, Change – things happen, good and bad, don’t let them deflect you, seize control of your life; spot the opportunities; choose the ones that matter to you, and then take action!
2. Use goals as your compass and roadmap - develop a motivating and exciting goal and use it like a compass to guide your direction. Your career journey is never a straight line, you will have setbacks, recover and get back on your horse when you fall off, understand why you fell off, then do things differently and go again.
3. Stay focused, disciplined, and flexible - focus on the journey and the destination will take care of itself, manage distractions, take one step at a time, and expect the unexpected.

After delivering the content the students got a chance to ask some questions,Nana and I tried to explain further to the students. They showed they were following the webinar and interested in the content.

Here are some photos taken during the session