Community Bridge

Dear Friends, Wrocław Youth Club is planning on implementing a 8-day-lasting international training course on how to initiate, support and run social initiatives and projects based on community needs, with a focus on social entrepreneurship. The training course is targeted at youth leaders and youth workers and is envisaged to take place from July 8th – 16th of 2017 in Szklarska Poręba area, Poland. For this project, we are looking for international partner organisations from the ERASMUS+ KA1 Programme Countries (28 EU member states + FYROM, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Turkey). Being a partner organisation entitles you to send 2 – 3 participants to the training course.

 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The international training course “Community Bridge” aims at empowering and building up the competences of youth workers to initiate, support and run social initiatives and projects based on community needs, with a focus on social entrepreneurship.

The main objectives are:

(1) to get to know each other and to learn from each other on all levels:
• personal
• (inter-)cultural
• professional / the organisations we represent
• showcasing and sharing practices and realities in youth work

2) to explore how to meet community needs:
• how to make a needs assessment
• sharing different realities of community needs in Europe
• identifying possible actions or interventions to meet community needs
• the role of European citizenship and active participation of young people

3) to build up competences and practice tools in the area of:
• social entrepreneurship
• managing people and commitment
• project management

(4) to identify follow-up activities:
• introduction of and training on ERASMUS+ and other funding schemes that aim at positive change and/or Social Entrepreneurship
• exploring and understanding the possibilities and role of youth work to bring about positive innovative change
• support in partnership-building and project development on local and international level
• support in drawing consequences on individual level (personal and professional)
• to support the partners and participants in disseminating the results of the training course and in transferring the competences and learning points to colleagues and young people

 PEDAGOGIC APPROACH

The training course will be based on the specific needs of the participants and partner organisations, and will be highly participatory. Diversity, e.g. in the group of participants, will be considered as a resource for the exchange and transfer of competences, as well as special attention is paid to the intercultural dimension of the project. There will only be few frontal lectures, the main part of the training course will be delivered in the form of practical sessions implemented by the participants in a learning-by-doing fashion, using the full toolbox of non-formal education and experiential learning. The trainers will take care of creating a supportive and safe learning environment, where participants are encouraged and coached while mastering challenges that contribute to their personal, professional and organisational development. The learning takes place both on individual level as well as in synergetic group processes. Special attention is paid to making the learning points of the training course relevant, sustainable and transferable, eg by producing exhaustive documentation and by providing templates for tailor-made development and action plans.

 TARGET GROUP

This training course is targeted at youth leaders and people actively involved in youth work. Ideally, participants should be in a position to be able to influence the decision making of their organisation. Participants must be aged 18+ and be residents in the country of the nominating partner organisation. Participants should be fluent in english, and be willing and committed to work hard (about 9 hours per day at least). Participation from beginning till the end is mandatory, absence without prior agreement with the organisers leads to expulsion from the programme and cancellation of the reimbursement of travel costs. Participants should furthermore commit to carry out any preparatory task asked for by the organisers, and be willing to follow-up on the training course via active youth work, ideally in co-operation with their sending/partner organisation.

 PARTNER ORGANISATIONS

In order to become a partner organisation in this project, interested institutions must comply
with the following criteria:

• you are legally established in a country belonging to the ERASMUS+ Programme Countries (28 EU member states + FYROM, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Turkey)
• you are non-profit making (e.g. Civil Society Organisations, NGOs and NPOs, municipalities and local administrations, ...), and you work for the benefit of society
• you work (among other) with and for youth
• you share, promote and live European values, especially solidarity, respect, human rights, intercultural dialogue, unity in diversity, cohesion, inclusion, active participation and European citizenship
• you have a strong local and/or transnational dimension in your projects, and you are interested in international co-operation
• you commit yourself to full participation in all stages of the project. This comprises of:
⇒ PREPARATION: you identify suitable participants (either from your own organisation or from your local partners and networks), and you support them for their active participation in the training course, including the execution of preparatory tasks assigned by the coordinator, the identification of learning needs, and the arrangement of travel, insurance and visa
⇒ IMPLEMENTATION: you stay in touch with your participants and with the coordinator at all times and make sure you and your participants make relevant contributions to the project and get benefits for your organisation and your target groups
⇒ FOLLOW-UP: you make sure that the learning points and outcomes of the training course are transferred back to your organisation (e.g. via a report or local training course by the participants), you commit to implementing the learning points and outcomes of the training course in the work of your organisation (eg via follow-up projects), and you make sure the learning points and outcomes of the training course are further multiplied and disseminated (eg via local training courses, dissemination of the reports via web 2.0, follow-up projects etc).
• you agree that if you do not succeed in recruiting suitable participants for this project, the coordinator will recruit replacement participants from your country on your behalf