TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Claudia Baltolu
The practical seminar "Humor and hate speech. Can you tell the difference?" involved youths aged 18-35, preferably interested in the themes of satire and/or communication.
The goals we set for the seminar can be summarized as follows:
1.) To empower youth leaders with tools to master satire as a method for transmitting values and ideas.
2.) To sensitize youth leaders on the themes of non discriminatory speech and inclusive communication.
3.) To stage the ground for an encounter between different cultural sensibilities on the issue with youths as the central actors of exchange and mediation.
4.) To elicit a dynamic of dissemination within national organizations reaching out to youth operators on the field thereby strengthening organizational sensibility on the issue as well as organizational capacities.
The target group was young people with a vested interest in Satire as a tool of communication and social awareness. The participants taking part in the project were from; Italy, Croatia, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal. Total number of participants was 18.
In brief, the following working methods were implemented:
1.) Plenary discussions for sharing and exchange of views, thoughts, ideas, etc.
2.) Experiencing: different educational settings, different non formal education methods (role play, simulation game, exercise...)
3.) Simulation exercises for skills development.
4.) Participants' workshops
5.) Work in small groups for the sake of sharing and developing cooperation.
6.) Workshops for detailed exploration of specific issues (such as learning styles, personal development plan, job interview, tools etc).
7.) Reflecting: on the methods and its impacts, on the power and limits of NFE, on building a pedagogical process.
With this project, we wanted to provide participants with competences to be successful to socialy include marginalized youth stimulating them to be more active in the community, boostering peacebuilding activities. In another hand, the project wanted to use main communication tools ( social media and satire) as pedagogical tools in order to stimulate a correct use of "words and images" to promote intercultural dialogue. TC also addressed satire as a tool to be used in peacebuilding activities.
The main idea of this project was to encourage and educate youth to open the dialogue about how to handle certain conflicts or problems.
Based on a self assessment evaluation, trainers lead participants to develop the following skills: social skills (interaction and communication with others) and soft skills (friendliness and optimism).
During the project the participants developed attitudes of cultural understanding, tolerance, positive self awareness and attitudes of non-discrimination regarding the area one comes from.
Participants acquired new knowledge regarding problems and the strengths of cultural organization in different parts of Europe, similarities and differences and new knowledge about dissemination tools and communication methods.
Facilitators insured an interactive process and each participant contributed with an added value to the knowledge, skills and attitudes each obtained during the project.
Each day, trainers lead a “comfygroup”, a comfortable space in which participants (divided in smallest group) could share freely their feelings and feedback analyzing the learning process.
During the project we focused on 4 key competences as Learning to learn, Youth Participation, Sense of Creativity, Cultural awareness and expression.
I was a co-trainer and a co-facilitator with my colleagues Mattia Cordioli and Jure Sterman in this project. Our international team worked together in order to share experiences and knowledge in order to set a better enviroment for the participants. My tasks were to organize, prepare and implement all the worshops.