NOTE: The activity has been cancelled - Your Voice - Your Choice

How can young people learn to participate? How do we engage young people in social and democratic processes in local communities? Which role does non-formal learning play in this?

 Why this Training Course?

Youth participation is an essential part of community development and is one of the key elements in democratic societies. The key questions arising when dealing with this topic are:

How do we engage young people in social and democratic processes in local communities? How to create an environment for sustainable youth participation? Which role does non-formal learning play in this? What are the obstacles for young people when it comes to participation?

Do you want to learn about how cultural and artistic activities can help in supporting youth participation?

How can young people learn to participate?

Aim:

By using non-formal learning methods, contribute to a better understanding of youth participation, the supporting role of the youth worker, and the many layers youth participation offers in the development of a sustainable democratic society.

Objectives:

1- To explore the concept of Youth Participation and the role it has in the democratic societies and in policy making.

2. To equip youth workers and leaders with tools necessary to support youth participation and critical thinking among young people and to support the process of learning to participate.

3. To reflect on youth workers’ own paths of participation (and learning to participate) as a way to better understand the young people’s needs.

4. To exchange good practices of youth participation and develop new ideas for local youth work and youth engagement.

Target Group

This project is an opportunity for youth workers and young leaders over 18 years old involved in youth participation work and/or interested in the topics of human (and children) rights, active citizenship, community development, democracy and policy making.

Participants should have intermediate language skills in order to be able to communicate in English and a willingness to bring back and to implement the new knowledge and skills to their local communities. 

Methodology

During this training course, we will use different working methods /approaches to ensure the positive and safe learning environment among participants within the field of Non-Formal learning. The group itself will be one of the main sources of learning which will be facilitated through group discussions, reflections, team work activities and role plays. There will also be laboratories of experiences where participants will be able to exchange good practice in the field of Youth Participation.

One of the important things we would like to mention here is the importance of the venue for this training course.

About the venue:

Utøya is a small island in Tyrifjorden around 40 km outside of Oslo, and is today most commonly known as the venue for the terrorist attack on the 22th of July 2011.

Utøya has a long tradition of being a venue for teaching democracy, freedom of speech, respect and diversity, holding summer camps for young people being interested in politics, sustainability and democracy. This was also the reason behind the terrorist attack, which will forever be the darkest day in the history of Norway. All the buildings where people were killed are today torn down, except  “Hegnhuset” (in English “the house that safeguards”) which today stands as a monument of what happened in a symbolic way. Utøya today stands as a witness of why we cannot take the values of democracy for granted. The venue today serves as a place for learning, where young people and youth workers can come and learn about democratic values like freedom of speech, civic engagement, respect and diversity, and come together and discuss these topics among each other.

We see these values very much linked to the topic of youth participation, especially when it comes to engaging and empowering young people and youth workers working with youth participation. Therefore we see Utøya as a venue to help us explore the concept of youth participation together with the participants.