TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Atanas Genkov
The objectives of this project are to increase the quality and the quantity of the EVS programme between the involved countries. All 13 participating partners are accredited and active EVS sending and hosting organizations. Further more:
1. To increase the quality by gaining new coaching skills in order to guide and mentor volunteers knowing more methods and techniques.
2. To increase the quantity of the EVS programme by create a network of organizations who are reliable and know each other and the way they work, in order to make sending and hosting of volunteers easier and more effective by creating a good working relation and exchanges of relevant knowledge.
3. A third outcome can be to apply with the partners of this project for other training and exchange activities.
4. To share and have certain quality standards that needs to be followed in order to smoothly deal with the EVS volunteers. So sending and hosting is done in agreed quality
2 participants from each partner country involved in all processes and empowered to learn from their own experience and create their own individual knowledge and development concerned with the issue. We call it “learning by doing”. This is the method, based on experiential learning. In this approach learning becomes a specific and individual process, because it depends from the person, her/his behavior, reaction and emotions, attitude and way of thinking.
The main methods of working will be exercises, games and activities, in which participants will experience the models of real life. We will also develop together minimum standards/criteria for what a hosting and sending organization needs to fulfill.
A representative from SALTO Eastern Europe & Caucasus Resource Centre is invited to share first-hand experience and expectations from the accreditation perspective of hosting and sending organizations.
Beside organizational practicals, personal skills will also be developed. With the basic techniques that are given in the coaching training part, one can develop own coaching style, can learn how to work out of own qualities and how to improve and implement already existing knowledge.
The target group - representatives of Sending/hosting EVS organisations - 26 participants - 2 people per organisation - 13 organisations/countries represented, with focus on Eastern Europe and Caucasus: The Netherlands, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary.
The team - 5 experienced trainers from The Netherlands, Greece, Ukraine, Turkey and Bulgaria.
The main method used is Experiential learning, or “learning by doing”. In this approach learning becomes a specific and individual process, because it depends from the person, their behaviour, reaction and emotions, attitude and way of thinking.
Other main methods of working: exercises, games and activities, in which participants experience the models of real life.
The organizational results of the training can be that we start an active and effective hosting and sending process and start build a strong platform of organizations, that operate based on same standards, values and understanding. Another result would be joining forces and applying together for further projects could be a value. To look for possibilities to send and host EVS volunteers among each other.
On personal level the result of the training can be that you will identify and show up all your core qualities and you will be able to perform all different approaches available, through your own unique style. Additionally to this, a result can be a long lasting confidence, while interacting with others, which will bring you to your desired outcomes with much less effort than before.
I was a full time trainer and expert in Youth in Action and specifically in EVS.