Local projects are one of the major stakeholders of FSL India’s IVS program. To empower LTV project Contact Person, FSL India is organized workshops in different regions and zones. Accordingly, the workshop for Udupi zone contact person was held on 10^th April in Mulki and for Mangalore zone and on 11^th April 2015 at Fsl-India youth training centre Kundapur for Udupi zone.  Workshops are conducted every year to understand and strengthen the partnership between host organization, host family, volunteers and FSL India for mutual benefit in the context of ICL through international volunteer program. Different sessions conducted during the workshop are –Welcome, FSL updates, EAP/Safety guidelines, Zonal gatherings concept and open discussions. In total 40 people participated in these two workshops facilitated by Kundapur LTV team, deputy director Mr. Ragland and president of FSL-India  Mr. Rakesh Soans.

 Sessions were facilitated by Shalini and Komala from Educators collective. They are committed towards community building of educators in order to create meaningful and transformative learning experiences for children, youth and communities in Middle India. Shalini has been working in the area of experiential education for 7 years now, largely focusing on children, youth and communities in urban slums through leading NGO’s and independent projects.

Mr. Ragland welcomed the participants and President Mr. Rakesh Soans did introductory speech along with welcome. After few fun games, group discussions were done about EAP and results of the discussions were presented. Mr. Rakesh shared that EAP can be also used not only with volunteers but also steps discussed during the workshop can be applicable for the community in their daily life. Discussed concept of get together and zonal gatherings with contact persons and host families.

All these input led to a lively discussion between the facilitators and the contact persons/participants to create an improved working condition for the volunteers. The workshop was very interactive. The representatives of host organizations actively participated in the discussion and articulated their concerns and raised number of issues which can be mutually resolved in the days to come.