Report :

The way from Cairo to Gummersbach is in terms of time shorter than the road from Cairo to Sohag or Sharm el-Sheikh – it is almost five hours. You leave Cairo airport at the early hours of the day, spending dawn time and the early morning hours on board of a plane atop the Mediterranean and Italian Alps until you reach Frankfurt with the beginning of the working hours. From there you take a plane to Düsseldorf, and then a car or a train to Gummersbach, where the International Academy for Leadership (IAF) lies on top of one of the high hills of this small quiet town. You might be met by Martin or one of the minibus drivers working with the Academy for receiving trainees from the airport to take them to IAF. You might meet other people as well, but they will also be like Martin: friendly and practical, helping you with their welcoming eyes and body language, and with their words as well as their hands that hasten to carry your luggage to line it properly at the back of the bus. Of course, here there is no place for tips or begging! Forget that completely and rest at peace from the haunting of beggars that can relentlessly follow you in other places.

In the IAF reception, you would be met by Denise and her colleagues at work. You are likely to feel warm despite the cold of February in north-west Germany. You are quickly greeted with a warm drink, informed about your room number, and given the key together with a key to the academy gate, in case you spend sometime in the city and return after it closes at 8.00 pm. In your room, you feel that you are taken back to your school years! The room comprises a petit single bed, a desk, and a small wardrobe with a safe for your precious belongings. The room is like a small apartment with a bathroom. It overlooks a huge forest and farms, which you can see from big windows that guarantee good ventilation. You also would have good heating through the central heating system of the whole Akademie buildings and facilities.

After a short break, the trainees, who came from all over the world, meet. They had come from China, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe, and other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The faces meet with a warm smile that extends to long-term friendships not only limited to the time of the course. Those who came for a course in Gummersbach this time are not ordinary trainees. They are parliament members, party leaders, leaders of civil society organizations, and some of them are former ministers and political advisors – they have in common the practice of politics and/or involvement in public life for decades. You would also be met by the smiling face of Ms. Birgit Lamm the director of IAF with Arno Keller and Wulf Pabst at her side, and who will later facilitate the discussions and provide the material for the trainees.

The reception offers a great opportunity for mingling and exchange of information and for getting to know the countries from which the participants come. If you were lucky like me, you would get to know interesting people like I had known, such as Rakhita Sunil Jayawardena, the Media and Public Communications Officer in the United National Party of Sri Lanka, Patricia Bullrich, the parliament member and former Minister of Labour in Argentina, Youhong Chen, the head of the League of Owners of Private Houses in China, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, the Malaysian parliament member, Rozzano Rufino B. Biazon, the Filipino congress member, Sanaullah Baloch, the Pakistani Parliament member, Ludmila Farkasovska, the candidate of Slovakia to the European Parliament, Nisreen Shahin, the director of the Palestinian organization “Sout Wahid” (unified voice), Nisvan Kabakci, who is getting ready for membership in the Turkish Parliament, or Luk who is getting ready for an important role in Myanmar, as well as other names for people who participated in the course for Political Leaders on Political Communications Strategies. Each and every one of them added a great deal of practical experience to the material distributed by Keller and Pabst for a period of over such a hard-to-forget week.

The program included several topics that are not the usual business of textbooks. Keller and Pabst, the presenters/ facilitators were very vibrant and creative, and very attentive to the experience of the participants, while weaving them into the discussions and lessons of political expertise. The trainees learned how to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s”, how to formulate a clear political vision based on research and knowledge, how to identify goals and target groups, how to formulate political messages, how to develop these messages and implement them, how to organize mobilization campaigns, the rules of communication with the public, and the minimum requirements to achieve political victory/ success.

The program was divided into two parts: a theoretical part where the participants listened to the experience of the facilitators through presentations; and a practical part where they were divided into subgroups to conduct practical application on one or more issues. After group work, they bigger group would meet in a plenary to discuss and evaluate the results of each group. For example, I worked in a group to prepare for a discussion in a local council concerning turning a large park in the city of this council into an entertainment park with recreational activities, restaurants, and night clubs with the aim of acting as a tourist attraction and creating job opportunities to the increasing numbers of the unemployed who have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis witnessed by this town. This group was supposed to represent opposition and not the majority in the Council. We had to investigate the matter from all sides: legal, architectural, security, economic, and environmental, with the aim of persuading the Council to adopt this project.

On the other hand there was another group getting ready to counter our efforts; a group that represented the majority in this local government. A discussion was held involving the two groups. After the lapse of the time allocated for discussion, the citizens (the rest of the participants) were invited to vote for or against the representatives of majority and opposition. Unfortunately, we lost the vote and the government managed to win the support of the people, because they managed to divert the discussion away from the topic and to cause a state of hysteria and frenzy, which blocked the means to sane and sound talk.

However, the defeat of my group was compensated with another group that was formed to design a comprehensive campaign to convince the public to support the demand of my party related to repealing Emergency Laws in the country. In reality, this campaign was designed according to more practical criteria, taking into consideration the actual capacities of the leadership and the public alike. The campaign included the formulation of the situation and the political message more capable of convincing. We were also able to determine the target groups through the political message, the means of communication, the identification of work groups, the responsibilities, the timeline for implementation and the needs of every program and stage, as well as the budget for the campaign. The members of the group organized for this campaign interacted with great enthusiasm, utilizing in full their experience and background. The project was applauded by the participants and was considered one of the most important projects presented in this course due to its comprehensiveness and accuracy of the details.

With the vibrant activities of the participants, there was enough time for sports, shopping, listening to music and even dancing. Life has its bright side and other aspects that also make one happy and renew one’s energy.

Behind all these activities Feline Freier, the smart energetic 24-year old, moved to record every bit and piece of the discussions, prepare the daily agendas, record the results of the discussions, prepare the guidelines for the sessions and discussions. Feline worked hard, and continued to do so up to the last day. She prepared a DVD with all the activities of the course and a group of pictures that were taken during the reception. The DVD was distributed with the Certificate and a photo of the whole group upon graduation, the ceremony that was as perfect as it could be, encircled with a spirit of happiness and friendliness, all complete with a luxurious dinner filled with Mediterranean dishes. Feline was moving about with the finesse of a dear and the resilience of a lion. On the last day she insisted to celebrate the end of the course in her way. Feline Freier was more than beautiful and managed to win the admiration and love of all involved in the course of “Political Communications Strategies” held in IAF from 1-7 February 2009. The communications developed and identified, and the presentation skills that we learned and employed, and the ideas developed, are indeed an important asset to each and every one of us in our daily business. I believe that none of the participants would ever forget their seven-day stay in Gummersbach.