EXERCISE 1 - YOUR CHARACTER STRENGTHS

Objective

The objective of the exercise is for the participants to identify and reflect upon their own top strengths, and have a visual representation of their strengths that they can show to others.

This will be helpful when the participants need to know each other’s strengths and find possible partners with complementing strengths. It will also illustrate how strong they are if they pool together their means.

Before the exercise give a good introduction to the 24 character strengths. You can see them in Annex 1-3.

Description

1. Give each particpant a print out of the 24 strengths and vive them 10 minutes to reflect on what they feel are they top 5 strenghts. Ask them to share it in plenary.

2. Ask the participants to work together in pairs.

3. Participant 1: Tell a story from your life to the other participant. The story should be about something you have done and said in a specific situation in your own life.

4. Participant 2 listens well (what did participant 1 say and do in the story?)

5. Participant 2 reflects about what he/she heard. What did the story tell about participant 1´s character strengths?

6. Did it show kindness, creativity, courage, honesty, hope, love etc. Think about the 24 character strengths.

7. The participants take turns doing this - and repeat the exercise a couple of times to get different perspectives.

8. When they are done ask each participants to try to sum up what strenghts he or she have identied as their own top strenghts.

Facilitator’s notes

If you have access to Internet, the participants can also take the test at: https://www. viacharacter.org/survey/account/register