By: Sani Firmansyah & Natalia Trita Agnika

Volunteers of Panda Mobile and Bumi Panda are the frontline in delivering conservation messages. Through them, the public can get information about green lifestyles, protected animals, and efforts to preserve the environment. It's no wonder that these volunteers are required to have good public speaking skills to ensure that their messages are well understood.

On Tuesday (21/06), Panda Mobile and Bumi Panda volunteers had the opportunity to improve their public speaking skills through a training session. Before the material was presented, they were first asked to introduce themselves and tell the reason why they became a volunteer at WWF-Indonesia. Through this activity, the volunteers exchanged stories of their activities. "This event is also a gathering event with volunteers from (Bumi Panda) Bandung," said Azhari Lubis, volunteer Panda Mobile.

The public speaking material was delivered by Ratri Adhita Dewi or who is familiarly called Dhita. volunteers.
After talking about the power of introductions, Dhita made a list of the things that a WWF volunteer feels. The participants were asked to mention the things that make them happy to be a volunteer, the things that sometimes become obstacles when serving as a volunteer, and the materials that are usually explained when dealing with audiences. Afterwards, the volunteers were divided into groups to discuss the appropriate power of introduction for the kindergarten-school and junior-high school age groups. The age difference of the audience affected the way of introduction. At the end of the discussion, one or two representatives came forward and practiced the results of their discussion.

When speaking in public, it is important to pay attention to the mood of the other person. In the second session of training, Dhita asked the participants to pair up. One of the pair was asked to close their eyes and imagine a memory that triggered one of their strongest emotions. The other participants were asked to guess what emotion their partner had chosen based on their facial movements. This is an exercise in reading facial expressions when we are presenting something to an audience. When speaking in public, it is important for us to know when our interlocutor is interested, bored, or suddenly angry. Reading the other person's mood can also be done by looking at other gestures besides the face. But as a starting point, participants were asked to read the facial expressions of each interlocutor.

Another interesting lesson learned by the volunteers is about matching and mirrorring. matching and mirrorring is to listen fully to what is conveyed by the listener so that the incoming information is not filtered by our assumptions and conjectures beforehand.

In the last session, the participants were again divided into several groups and asked to practice all the theories that had been obtained. Participants were asked to rate each other, and then choose the most proficient speaker to come forward and practice the power of introduction as a group representative. The people who came forward were the candidates for the best participant of the day as voted by the other participants. Haris, a volunteer from Panda Mobile was chosen as the best participant.

With the public speaking skills learned that day, the volunteers are expected to be more confident and enthusiastic when they become facilitators for children and adults in every activity organized by Panda Mobile or Bumi Panda. "This training is very useful for me not only in my work activities (as a volunteer -Red) but also in my daily life in communicating with others," said Irfan Alfian, volunteer Panda Mobile about the benefits of the public speaking training he participated in.