Two weeks ago, I participated in the 2026 edition of FLOW in Mutters, Austria.

The venue

When we reached the destination of the training, I could not believe my eyes. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking! Everywhere we looked, there were snowy mountains that looked like they came straight out of a painting.

The activities

The week started slowly with introductions. There were 30 of us so we were quite the big group! We came up with a group agreement and quickly after we started learning about group dynamics, group coordination and how to make spaces safeR.

The activities were quite fun and engaging, which is always my preferred way of learning. One involved theater and having done acting in the past, I particularly enjoyed that activity.

In the next couple days, we tackled challenging situations through an imaginary support chat for facilitators where we had multiple flipcharts on the tables and we had to answer the facilitators’ concerns. This activity mentioned many possible problems we could face as facilitators from small issues to much bigger ones like discrimination or harassment. It was quite interesting to think about all the diverse situations we could face, it really helped to take a step back and realise just how many things we need to be prepared for.

The last two days were dedicated to more in-depth learning about facilitation. We had discussions about facilitation in times of collapse, we talked about the importance of care-work and that same day, we held an open space where we could discuss topics we did not manage to tackle during the project. I participated to an open space about accessibility, held by Amalya, and it was super insightful. We even did a kahoot which was super fun! Sadly, my teammate Nastia and I did not win…

The last day was focused on visual facilitation, FLOW as a career, networking and the evaluation. I really enjoyed learing about visual facilitation, it felt like I was back in art class!

Evening activities

At the end of each day, we were free to choose our own evening activities. Everyone was quite proactive about it and we had different kinds of activities every day. One evening, we gathered around a campfire and Thomas, one of the facilitators, told us about Mutters’ local legends he grew up with. The atmosphere was super cosy and nice. But my favorite evenings remained the ones when we played werewolf!

Conclusion

Overall, I had a great time and experience and I learned a lot. The session on networking we did on the last day and the resources that were sent to us after the training were very useful and opened a lot of opportunities for us. I also enjoyed the free afternoon we had on day 3. We went to Innsbruck to visit the city and ate good food with amazing views.

A big thank you to SCI Austria and the facilitators for making this experience all the more special!