TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Daniel John Carter
The project ACTive YOUth!!! was a 7 day Training Course that will gather 30 youth workers and youth leaders from 6 European Countries to develop their understanding and competencies in facilitating active youth participation especially with young people with fewer opportunities.
The idea of the seminar, came from the need to involve youngsters especially those from marginalized communities in participative projects and stimulate their active citizenship. The project put special emphasis on understanding exactly what active youth participation actually is, and will aim to equip the participants with competences to facilitate such participation and create such opportunities. It also emphasized on participation barriers for young people with disability (physical and sensory) and young people facing socio-economic obstacles. The project was implemented with methodology of non formal education. Participants worked to develop guidelines for youth workers and youth organizations on how to facilitate active youth participation.
The objectives of the project were:
- Introduce principles of Active Youth Participation and focusing on participative social inclusion of youngsters with fewer opportunities.
- To develop competences needed for developing and running youth led, participative projects that especially inclusion of young people with fewer opportiunities.
- Develop participants understanding of participation projects, including needs analysis, aims, objectives, methodology, plan of activities, evaluation and follow-up.
- Exchange experiences, good practices, opinions, educational tools and materials related facilitating ACTive YOUth Participation.
The project ACTive YOUth!!! was a 7 day Training Course that will gather 30 youth workers and youth leaders from 6 European Countries.
The project was organized in partnership with organizations from the UK, Italy, Cyprus, Netherlands, Serbia and Macedonia.
The Seminar was funded through the British Council through an application from Globallove Youth Trust and coordinated in Macedonia by Center for Intercultural Dialogue. The training team consisted of Milos Ristovski (MK), Dragan Atanasov (MK) and Daniel John Carter (Wales, UK).
The seminar was all about the need for a European approach to facilitating inclusion and active citizenship of young people from socially excluded communities such as Roma, ethnic minorities, young offenders and youth in poverty. It was about finding ways to ensure that young people have a voice and that their needs, interests and expectations are heard and understood. The issues surrounding social inclusion were of common interest; as was the prospect of youth workers and young people working together to develop and implement strategies to address these issues. The educational approach of the seminar was developed by the team, based on the objectives of the project. The programme created a ground for sharing and learning from one another. The content was delivered by facilitators, experts and guest speakers that demonstrated variety of competencies to create and deliver introductory activities, active and passive presentations, debriefing activities, practice activities, performance activities, reflection/review activities, small group discussions, feedback sessions, plenary discussions, name games, ice-breakers, and other common methods of non-formal education. The learning curve for participants was self-generated from their involvement in informal and topic based group discussions and workshop activities. Discussions centred on improving the strategies, methodologies and processes of non-formal learning across Europe. In particular, it focused on finding ways to allow young people a voice in the development of non-formal learning, and to express their needs and interests on this, this was the fundamental development. Participants were actively involved at all stages from identification of needs and formulation of strategies, developing knowledge and skills, sharing and formulating good practice, implementing methodologies, etc. The seminar was a constant learning process with a continuous exchange of information, ideas and abilities.
One of the outcomes of the team building section of the seminar was the 'Mavrovo Rap' which can be found here:
https://vimeo.com/92601838
The participants also developed five sets of guidelines for the facilitation of Active Particpation with five specific groups of young people. These groups were / the guidelines can be found here:-
Disabled Youth: http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/youth_participation___disabled_yout
LGBT Youth:
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/handbook_lgbt
Homeless Young People:
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/homeless_young_people___youth_parti
Youth in Poverty:
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/youth_in_poverty_slideshow.pptx
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/youth_in_poverty_handbook
Ethnic Minority Youth:
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/ethnic_minorities_and_active_youth_
http://issuu.com/danieljohncarter/docs/ethnic_minority_youth_participation
As the trainer who wrote the backbone of the project and applied it I was not only responsible for the coordination of training facilitation and running sessions. I was also responsible for communication with participants about arrivals and departures, choosing particpants, communication with logistics officers about what was needed, choosing venue and excursion locations.
I was also respsonsible for reimbusement of particpants as well as the final report.
On this seminar I was trainer, facilitator, logistics, communications and financial officer.