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Pictured: Group of students from Youth With A Mission Julian Bullen worked with to develop leadership skills

Julian Bullen, Project Director for Clarkson Alliance, took his leadership skills to Albania to train staff and students on behalf of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) charity earlier this month.

Julian has partnered with YWAM over the past 15 years on a range of international charity projects to build teams’ confidence and skills enabling them to direct local projects.  The organisation has 18,000 staff based in 180 nations.  Julian took time out of sharing leadership skills in Prague where he is currently based on Clarkson Alliance’s first international project, Oaks Prague, to make the one week trip.

Julian worked with students in Durres, Albania and also ran separate training sessions for their teachers and a third visiting group introducing them to new skills for their personal development.

Working with an Albanian translator and using games, group challenges, drama, cartoon videos and worksheets, the group looked at issues such as conflict resolution, communication and collaboration.

Part of the training was to prepare a team for some outreach work at a separate location in the Balkans. Their own stories of political strife in Venezuela, civil war in Ukraine and life as an orphan in Albania were a cocktail of humbling, inspiring, powerful and thought-provoking moments.

“Motivating teams is part of our daily work as Project Managers.  We have spent years developing our skills so that we can carry out the projects our clients need.   It is incredibly rewarding to take those skills and equip people who wouldn’t normally have access to these experiences so they can move forward and deliver the initiatives they need within their communities.  The teams they work with may not be similar; there may be language and cultural barriers but by teaching them the essential skills of leadership, they can overcome any issues and achieve a common goal with their teams. Working with such a diverse group was a challenge but extremely rewarding!” – Julian Bullen, Project Director for Clarkson Alliance.