What a story!

Do you want to explore STORYTELLING as a transformational educational method AND as a tool of promoting democratic values, inclusion, empowerment & critical thinking of young people? “What A Story!" is an Erasmus+ 8-day training course aimed at youth workers, facilitators and educators active in the field of youth. It is hosted by Ecoservice Foundation. It will involve 28 participants from 10 countries: Italy, Czech Republic, UK, Spain, Romania, Poland, Greece, France, Hungary, Slovakia - plus 4 trainers. It will take place 12-20.September 2017 in Kisterenye , Hungary (webpage of the venue: www.haromkincsvolgye.hu) Note: what matters is the country of your residence - from where will you travel, not your nationality! CONTEXT: The idea for our course is born from the deep knowledge that storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for education. It can address creativity, youth participation and employability, critical thinking and social responsibility. Europe at the moment is facing major problems. Among these, the dis-empowerment of young people who feel marginalised from society, can't find their place and don't know (or forget) how to realise their potential in life. At the same time, phenomena like hate speech and online violence are on the rise. Also, racism, intolerance and ignorance can be greatly fueled by storytelling – as demonstrated by the strong use that every totalitarian government has done of it. One of the needs we perceive in youthwork is to have tools to counteract those parts of the mainstream media which fuel ignorance, intolerance and fear. Therefore - by using different forms and tools based on storytelling - we want to provide youthworkers, educators and trainers with background, motivation and skills to be able to handle these negative effects, to effectively contrast them, and to build healthier and positive alternatives. AIM: to explore storytelling as a transformational educational method; and as a tool of promoting democratic values, inclusion, tolerance, empowerment and critical thinking of young people. We also want to introduce the power of Nature as an inspiration, as a safe background, as our strongest ally in this huge work of education. OBJECTIVES: - to identify and understand key elements and skills for storytelling, and explore their potential benefits for learning, personal development and employability; - to analyze the increased impact that stories (and media) have on phenomena such as “hate speech”, intolerance and open racism. - to explore the concept of “transformational storytelling”: using storytelling as an innovative tool to address change and personal development; - to use elements of gamification to make youth work more attractive and accessible to young people (especially marginalised YP); - to create an international network of youth workers and organisations, able to use storytelling to develop skills and methods and to have an innovative impact on local levels. WORKING METHODS: The activities will be based on non-formal and experiential learning methodologies with a strong participant centered approach. We will offer different learning processes, founded on the principles of - among others - nature based education, the Way of Council, the narrative of the Hero’s Journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey) etc. The course will have a strong experiential part. Be prepared to be challenged in some ways that can surprise you! Participants will be offered a space for trying themselves out, and there will be a space for their inputs to be incorporated in the course.