Creativity: Unlocked Training (Austria, July 2010)

In May 2010, IDK applied to attend the five-day Creativity: Unlocked international training course, in Salzburg, Austria, from July 12 to 18, 2010.

This certified training, funded by the EU’s Youth in Action Programme, brings together individuals from European countries and backgrounds for several days, to develop personal, professional and intercultural competencies.

Twenty-two participants from seven EU countries (Austria, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Germany & Spain) participated in this training at European level. IDK’s Caroline Carswell attended the 5-day course, in which all attendees contributed their own expertise to the group training sessions/workshops.

Clare Mulvany, a Dublin-based photographer, writer & development consultant, also travelled to Austria. Here’s an excerpt of her blog:

” Travelling with Caroline for a week, I became very much more aware of the sounds and vibrations around me. Caroline is deaf but an accomplished lipreader. Her presence made me so much more alert to what I take for granted around me. One evening, we were going down to the lake and I completely forgot that Caroline would find it very difficult to lip read in the dark. We asked for some torches and instead got a whole stack of outdoor candles. So we proceeded in procession to the lake shore. ‘Ask for what you need’, said Caroline, ‘and the universe provides!’ It was a lovely lesson of a lovely philosophy in action.

Caroline also ran a workshop with us on hearing sound in new ways. Using balloons, she tapped out rhythms on drums, and true enough, I started to feel, and hear, the sound in an entirely new way. It got me thinking about tapping into my senses more for hidden information and knowledge. ”