The Power of Non Formal Education 2015

Why this Training Course? - To stimulate the participants to feel and reflect about the power of non-formal education (NFE) by experimenting different kind of non-formal educational methods. - To analyze the role and reception of NFE in our different countries within a common Europe. - To discover and debate the European strategy of NFE. - To fight against the growing consuming approaches towards young people in the non-formal education field. - To explore meanings, roles and complementarities of different educational approaches and methods (formal, non-formal, informal). - To reconsider daily youth work practices. - To understand the principles of program building and NFE within Youth in Action. - To experience Portuguese culture through increased involvement in the training of local communities. How it will be done? In order to have real impacts, the participants experience an innovative approach, using a full immersion in the experiential learning cycle: doing/ feeling, reflecting, transferring... To have profound impact, we need to go further than classical running of training courses. The participants are encouraged to really build their own training and learning process, supported by a fine tuned pedagogical programme. We consider that this is the condition to understand the real power of NFE. The pedagogical process A fundamental flow during the training is based upon: - Experiencing: different educational settings, different non formal education methods (role play, simulation game, exercise...) - Reflecting: on the methods and its impacts, on the power and limits of NFE, on building a pedagogical process... - Transferring: to the own reality of participants, in order to improve ways of working with young people - Sharing: different perceptions, current situations and experiences. - Developing: the building capacity of the participants, by including them in the decision process of the project designing (participants will decide some sessions they feel they need to have) but also in the implementation of the program (‘Power to the People’ moments). To experience the Portuguese culture, we will be living, eating, sleeping and working inside a small rural village (450 habitants) called Vila da Marmeleira. From August 2013 on, this village became the first ‘Rural Centre of Non Formal Education’ in Portugal … therefore you’ll be experiencing a double Non Formal Educational impact! The international evening is organized in small international groups together with 10 local Portuguese families. This training course is organized in close partnership the all the local stakeholders of the village Vila da Marmeleira (young people, families, associations, authority and companies). Be prepared to interact and discover … during an entire week you’ll be a ‘full habitant’ of the village! The program lasts for four full days will arrival day on Tuesday, 20th of January 2015 and departure day on Sunday, 25th of January 2015. There is a bus organized to pick up participants in the airport of Lisbon at 18h, to arrive in Vila da Marmeleira (1h busdrive). There will also be a bus to return to the airport Lisbon on the 25th of January 2015, in the morning. The program of the training course is available below in the Downloads section. In the same section there is available the Participants' Information Pack. Participants should be at least 18 years old and should have a good level of English.