TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Isabel Carayol Lorenzo
Due to globalization and world wide migration countries and cities are becoming more diverse. The aims of this training were to make participants become aware of diversity and see it as a benefit for society rather than a burden. It aims at mutual tolerance, empathy and peaceful living in diversity.
The concrete objectives of the training were:
-understanding that the meaning of culture is not limited to national cultures but generally other forms of living between human beings
-to foster tolerance and empathy towards other cultures
-participants are becoming aware of their prejudices and stereotypes and can critically destruct them
-critical reflection of the own socialisation, norms and values
-tolerance towards other values, norms and rules in other cultures
-realisation of the fact that the own point of view is always only one small particular point of view of how we see and understand the world
-the own culture and socialisation are not universal, but different for every single person
Intercultural learning is a long term process which we hope to activate with this training.
The target group of the training were 22 students from Hamburg, Germany. Many of them have migrational backgrounds from the countries Ecuador, Turkey, Spain, Afghanistan and the UK.
The methodology of this training was experience based learning. In order to have a great impact on the participants, it involved all five senses.
See: What do I see? How can I describe something without directly judging it?
Hear: What do I hear? What sounds familiar, what is new (languages, music, sounds)?
Taste: How do different types of food taste? Can I describe this new taste in detail?
Touch: What are objects I have not seen before? What is their use and are there similar objects with equal importance in my life?
Smell: What can I smell? What associacions do I have with these odors?
The participants discovered different subcultures and groups of people in their own city with the aim of mututal understanding and acceptance for diversity and various forms of living. People from different contexts were visited to explain their everyday lives, their values, their norms and how they see the world.
Participants got the chance to broaden their horizon of how diverse people in this world are - and how similar they might be at a second view.
The training had high aims for the participants. Intercultural learning is a long term process though, so it is difficult to see direct results within a week. In the upcoming years experiences made during this training might influence future behaviour and thoughts of the participants towards a more tolerant and peaceful living in diversity. During this week, we could already see an increasing interest of the participants in different ways of living of human beings in their surroundings/their own town.
More information about the training can be found on this website:
http://www.weltreisen-in-hamburg.de/
I was a full time trainer of this Diversity Training. Together with my experienced Co-Trainer Petra, also an expert on Diversity Trainings, I improved the existing training concept with new insights and carried out the training.