Belonging in Motion – Land Art & Storytelling Training for Youth Workers

“Belonging is not about fitting in. It is about creating space together.”

Every landscape tells a story.

A river finds its path between stones.
Roots grow around each other beneath the soil.
Different elements share the same ground and quietly shape the place they inhabit.

Human communities are not so different.

Belonging is not something fixed or given. It is something we create together, again and again, through the ways we meet, listen, and make space for one another.

Young people today grow up in increasingly diverse societies. Migration, cultural plurality, and different life experiences shape their everyday lives. For many of them, the question of belonging is more important than ever: Where do I belong? Can I be different and still be part of something?

Youth workers are often the ones creating spaces where these questions can be explored safely. But meaningful dialogue around diversity and inclusion requires creative tools and new approaches.

Land art offers a powerful way to open this conversation.

Created directly in nature using materials like stones, leaves, wood, and soil, land art is temporary by nature. The artwork exists for a moment and slowly disappears back into the landscape.

This makes it a powerful metaphor for diversity and belonging. Different elements come together to create something meaningful. Inclusion becomes a process of co-creation, and the landscape itself becomes a reflection of society.

During the training participants will:

• Explore diversity, identity, and belonging through experiential learning
• Learn the philosophy and practical techniques of land art
• Work in teams to design and create land art installations in nature
• Develop storytelling skills that connect art with personal narratives
• Learn how to document creative processes through photo, video, and interviews

Participants will not only learn about land art, but actively practice it, reflect on it, and transform the experience into practical youth work methods.

At the end of the training, each participant will design a concrete plan to apply these methods with young people in their own communities.

Youth workers will return home with creative tools to facilitate dialogue, strengthen inclusion, and help young people experience belonging not as something they must fit into, but as something they can shape together.

Because belonging is not static.
It moves with the people who create it.

The Training Team

• Tuba Ardic is the Director of Creative Connection, a trainer at the National Agency of Norway and a passionate youth worker, mentor and facilitator. She has been working with youth and non‑formal education since 2010, focusing on creativity, personal development and intercultural learning.
• Berat Ezel is the director of BDK Youth, Culture and Art Centre in Bodrum. He works as a youth worker and trainer focusing on empowerment, participation and artistic expression among young people. His work combines art, nature and self‑awareness practices within youth work.

Who are we looking for:

• Members or collaborators of youth organizations working regularly with young people (organization should have a valid OID number).
• Youth workers, educators, social workers and community leaders, artists interested in using Land Art for youth wellbeing.
• Those passionate about nature and exploring how to work with young people on diversity, identity, and belonging through experiential learning.
• Participants with good command of English.
• People older than 18 years with legal residence in the country they are currently living in.
• People with residence in one of the Erasmus + Program Countries (EU Member States and third countries associated with the Programme that do not need a visa for Norway)