Toolbox — For Training and Youth Work
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Exercise
A method to stimulate active participation and auto-determination within a group.
* This method developed by Harison Owen is based on a few principles that are absolutely crucial to it's success:
4 principals:
Whoever comes are the right people,
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened,
Whenever it starts is the right time,
When it is over, it is over.
The Law of Mobility
If at any time you are in a place where you feel you are
neither contributing nor learning, you alone have the
responsibility to remove yourself from that place and find
a place where you CAN contribute and learn.
After introducing these rules, participants nominate the themes that are important to them or one they would like to work on. Once all the themes have been written up on a wall and the times and locations have been decided, everyone goes to whichever group they want to join. This is the 'marketplace’. Each initiator of a
workshop is invited to insure that a record of the group discussion be prepared. The reporter may not be the initiator of the group, but someone else.
This is one way of running the method, but there are many other possibilites. Feel free to find and try out!
SALTO cannot be held responsible for the inappropriate use of these training tools. Always adapt training tools to your aims, context, target group and to your own skills! These tools have been used in a variety of formats and situations. Please notify SALTO should you know about the origin of or copyright on this tool.
http://toolbox.salto-youth.net/130
This tool is for
15-15000?
and addresses
Group Dynamics, Project Management, Personal Development, European Citizenship
Materials needed:
FLip carts, pens and fantasy for more.
Duration:
15 Minutes - several days
The tool was created by
Unknown.
(If you can claim authorship of this tool, please contact !)
The tool was published to the Toolbox by
Unknown (on 25 July 2003)
and last modified
21 June 2010
Comments
We are applying this technology on our activities, Jordan Youth Forum, where we gather 100-150 youth. We face sometime the problem of not finding in the group a facilitator who can organize the group work, so hope if there is an advice for that, because in open space we can't appoint a facilitator from our side. The other thing we are applying open space since two years and until now we had no training, me personaly i worked as a Moderator for 3 days on Open Space, but still wondering were we can attend a training on Open Space, because i had the chance to practice it but not to get a training on it.
I'm working for an NGO from North Italy, Associazione 451, and we have used the OST on many different occasions. According to our experience the main needed resource is time - less than 2 hours is never enough, because setting up the sessions so that they work will take at least 45 minutes. The beauty of Open Space is revealed when everyone understands the underlying philosophy of the method - the atmosphere becomes really creative in this case.
About the facilitator of each group - the person who proposes a topic should stay in this group as long as the discussion lasts and later make sure a written report remains from the main points of the discussion (it can be done together with others). This can seem limiting, but it also makes sure that only topics that really matter to people are proposed.
We usually let participants choose 1-2 of the groups they would like to join, and in case they intend to take a look at 2 groups instead of one, they should specify their priority 1 and the backup. Making sure which group they will visit first will give clarity to the facilitators on how many people they can expect.
It can also happen that a topic matters only to the one person that initiated it - in this case that person can either reflect on it freely or join another group.
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