TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Hermine Papikyan
The aim of the project: To give space for youth workers and youth leaders to delve into their inner selves, realizing their potential, aspirations, and most importantly a sense of their center; thus encouraging emotional balance and reflecting over “a better self” able to work as an efficient, comfortable, creative and assertive leader with young people.
-Becoming aware of personal SELF- Motivation, Empathy, Regulation, Social Skills, to recognize the importance of these both for personal as well as for professional and social life of youth workers and youth leaders
- Exploring the values of youth work on local level for each participant through oneSELF, reflecting on this through the lens of different types of art activities fostering quality improvements in global level of youth work
- Sharing best personal approaches of youth workers and leaders towards effective youth work through art and outdoor activities, yoga elements, meditation and self discovery
-Identifying emotional competency gaps firstly in youth work and then among young people for their personal and social development applying new NFL tools in connection with art to use the experience from this project afterwards
- Enhance sense of well being and self esteem, as youth workers are mirrors to youth, and are taken as role models with their personal actions
-Replenishing non-formal education toolbox with new sets of tools related to art, used within the project
-Coming up with follow-up activities in the principle of multiplication fostering quality improvements in youth work enhancing key competences and skills of young people for participation and social inclusion
30 youth workers and youth leaders from 10 countries/Malta, Italy, France, Spain, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia/
At the very beginning of the training, lots of welcome activities, team-building and ice-breaking games, simulation games and workshops for introduction to the topic and getting to know each others were organized. Group-building activities overlapped this period, in order to build cohesion, trust, integration and open participation from the young people.
The Experiential learning approach was the base of this training course.
.Reflection on own values as youth workers and personal learning objectives: It aims at giving space to the participants to reflect and reevaluate their approaches and values as youth workers to contribute to a better way and commitment as responsible for youth soul shaping in their work .
Mandala creation, balancing colors and youth work: The aim of this activities are To define and clarify personal/individual learning interests as youth workers or youth leaders and transfer them into learning achievements, to get ready for learning as youth workers and be ready to teach, recognize and identify youth as potentials for the best in life, to collect learning achievements.
Self-motivation in youth work: The aim is to reflect and recognize self-motivation as youth workers, as well as be full of motivation to motivate the young people as well as world citizens for a better world.
Music day and activities on empathy: The aim is to identify the own abilities to be empathetic and compassionate for a peaceful culture, and the music itself as a tool to touch souls and shape them, also ways to teach and develop empathy in our youth we constantly work with.
Activities on social skills: The aim is to show that there are some languages that do not belong to any nation to develop social skills, many of which are rooted in self-esteem and personal confidence, being easy to talk to and being a good listener, and many more.
Land Art: The aim of this activity is in the open air to create art from natural materials, soil, rocks, branches, leaves, flowers, etc, without harming the nature, a reflective process also connecting the participants to nature, to show how the participants are in coherent with their youth works, their aims and devotion. Analyses and debriefing of the session done to open up to the group with new ideas on personal work.
Dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body: The aim of these activities is to show dancing as a nursing intervention that supports positive feelings, communication and behavior. Based upon the idea that the body and mind are inseparable, so that a change in movement affects total functioning, that movement reflects personality. The same way the youth workers have certain various influence on youth. An expert invited to share detail theory information and practice some dance with the participants.
SUPER good youth worker: The aim is to create a space for the youth workers to reflect on their CURRENT youth worker roles, and design personal SUPER good youth workers, identifying own gaps to be filled in.
Follow up idea generation: prototype design, presentation, finalization. The aim of this activity is to equip the participants with practical skills on idea implementation, adaptation/creation that can be a useful in their youth work back in their home countries while designing the follow up action plans.
Reflection groups. The aim of this activity is to maximize the quality results of the training while allowing the participants to reflect on their learning process and have their contribution in refining the training in a way that best meets their needs and is in line with the goals of the project. The participants go into reflection groups daily and share their impressions and advice, thus ensuring their participation, as well as to measure project quality development.
YouthPass. The aim of this activity is to enable the participants to understand YouthPass as a self-assessment mechanism and enable them to self-assess their learning outcomes.
Erasmus+ program in the field of youth. This activity aims to enhance the understanding of the participants about the program and its opportunities for participation and cooperation aiming to promote the networking and future collaboration between the participants and their organizations.
Intercultural evening. This activity aims to promote intercultural mind-set and give the chance to discover new cultures and new lifestyles. Each country present a specific and unique tradition to the others and prepare national dinner for the whole group.
The outcome and experience sharing took place in different ways in each country:
e.g. The Latvian team, working also with local municipality shared articles on the municipality web page in Latvian and organized presentation within their organisation: http://vilaka.lv/index.php?mact=CGBlog%2Ccntnt01%2Cdetail%2C0&cntnt01articleid=4502&cntnt01returnid=15
http://vilaka.lv/uploads/docs/Vilakas%20novada_AUGUSTS_2017_29.08.2017.-galapdf.pdf - page. 6
Recently they informed that in Vilaka Youth Initiative Center, Latvia the participants organized social inclusion workshop for the young people, based on the model of the “Art me up” training course.
To work through a better and interesting youth work in Armenia, the participants initiated Art Club to empower civic awareness and civic education through art methods. As they say they have permanents participants for their Art Club, 50 young people per month.
2 of the Armenian team partcicpants took the initiative to join World Vision Armenia organisation and
take part in the National Tool Fair organised by SALTO EUROMED Resource Center and one of the
local Foundations. The participants presented drama tool for social inclusion of young people and
children called “My Theatre” which they created based on the methods applied during the training
course and inspired by Erasmus+Programme. They registered the tool in the
www.educationaltoolsportal.eu in local language:http://educationaltoolsportal.eu/hy/tools/%C2%AB%D5%AB%D5%B4-%D5%A9%D5%A1%D5%BF%D6%80%D5%B8%D5%B6%C2%BB-%D5%B0%D5%B8%D5%A3%D5%A5%D5%A2%D5%A1%D5%B6%D5%A1%D5%AF%D5%A1%D5%B6-%D5%A9%D5%A1%D5%BF%D6%80%D5%B8%D5%B6
I was a co-trainer of the training course, responsible for the preparation and implementation of the whole training programme and all the training sessions along with my colleague.