The Liminal Path

Backround: The transition from youth to adulthood over the last years has for many young people become an increasingly challenging step to take. The difficulty to enter the job market is one side of it whereas the lack of recognition for the transition period as a phase of exploration and discovery is another. In traditional societies and cultures especially biographical transition periods have been and still are considered very important phases for learning and development and are often marked by very distinct rituals. Youth workers and facilitators are often faced with young people being lost in this transition phase. The pressure to finish formal education and to as quickly as possible get into the labour market is in tension with the belief that non-formal learning experiences offer relevant experiences for personal development and growth. How can we deal with this ambiguity? This Training Course offers an intense opportunity for youth workers and facilitators to explore their own response to transition and change; ambiguity and uncertainty. The assumption is that if you are more aware how you cope with transition, then you can better accompany young people you work with through times of transition as well. Intentions: In this training course we invite participants on a journey to explore both their inner and outer worlds: The specific intentions: 1. Inspiring participants to explore their personal responses to transition and change. 2. Inviting participants to experience nature as a source for personal development. 3. Providing participants the opportunity and space to review their educational practice when it comes to accompanying others in transition periods. Methodolgy: Living through a period of transition means often involves travelling into the unknown and heading into a different direction; it is about moving. We therefore propose the course to be an itinerant one: Three days of the course we will be hiking and moving from place to place – either alone, in small groups or in bigger groups and at the end of the hike there will be an option to spend a night out as a “solo time” in nature. We will be in chalet type of accommodation at the start and end of the course. We will be using different tools from the non-formal learning, including elements such as: Theory U, Way of Council, Threshold work. Trainers: Paola Bortini Peter Hofmann Rupert Hutchinson Yvan Rytz