Change takes work. Changemakers must be made

Common learning increases common understanding among sport administrators. That’s – common sense.

National Course Directors (NCDs) are in charge of organising Olympic Solidarity's Sports Administrators Courses. 

To do that, they need to be trained and certified through a train-the-trainer type of course. 

For several years, the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka, with the financial and logistical support of Olympic Solidarity, organised such train-the-trainer training for their own NCDs. Knowing other NOCs are not able to run Sports Administrators Courses because of a lack of certified NCDs, they invite others, including Bhutan and Mongolia.

This course proved hard work: 31 hours across five days. Topics: Aristotle’s concept of ‘praxis,’ or the melding of theory with practice to yield thoughtful, practical doing or, put another way, goal-directed action; why learners, especially adult learners, learn best through experience; using audio-video aids effectively; experience and practice as keys to facilitation; and, perhaps key, defining success as ‘respecting austerity, modesty and amiability.’

To go back to Aristotle, in our real world, change usually doesn’t just – happen. 

It typically takes planning, resource, goodwill, teamwork and, again, hard work. 

It also recognizes up-and-coming talent; transfers a wealth of knowledge; empowers all involved; and builds community, both locally and beyond.

Like at this seminar.

This NCD training is a next-step – a real-world education, if you will. 

“Academically, when you are in the university, when you make a presentation, it’s totally different,” Bhutan’s Jigme Thinley said, meaning it can be – is even encouraged to be – long and winding. 

In sport, you have to get to the point, engage your audience, understand that they have limited time and, most probably, attention. Again, in his words: “In sports administration, it needs to be different.”

Chimeddorj Amarsanaa, who serves on the executive board of the Mongolian Olympic Committee, said, “It was a very great experience, learning experience. I’m now ready to share my knowledge when I go back to my country …”

Thinley said he has already done just that. He and two others at the Bhutan NOC, who went through the same programme in Sri Lanka a few years beforehand, took what they had learned and delivered a course for office administrators at the local level.

How did it go?

He smiled. Because common learning increases common understanding: “It went well, actually.”