TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Javier Larios
Strengthen the capacity of young people to actively and meaningfully contribute to their communities and society.
Support and strengthen the International Volunteering Service (IVS).
Advocate for social justice and intercultural understanding through collaboration and youth engagement.
The activity brought together young participants (between 22 to 27 years old) from Denmark, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Germany, Italy, France, and Austria. The facilitation team included Courtney Kelner from ICYE and Javier Larios as an independent freelance trainer.
The training was based on non-formal learning methods that encouraged participation, creativity, and collaboration.
Our activities included getting-to-know-each-other exercises and team-building sessions to strengthen group cohesion, along with creative writing workshops, energisers, and group challenges.
For the main course content, we used moving debates, fishbowl discussions, and arpantage (collective French reading and reflection on documents technique) . We also integrated media-based activities and public speaking challenges to develop communication and outreach skills.
The training strengthened the group’s work on creating a youth committee, giving them the foundation to develop a communication and advocacy plan, which they completed after the training course.
Participants also gained valuable learning in intercultural dialogue, conflict management, and collaborative approaches, improving their capacity to work together across cultures and contexts.
I worked as a full-time trainer, responsible for the development and implementation of a five-day workshop programme. My main tasks included:
Overall facilitation of the training, including daily opening and closing sessions.
Design and delivery of individual workshop sessions on storytelling for justice, inclusion, diversity, and gender equality.
Supporting participants’ learning process through reflection activities and group discussions.
Javier Larios' training skills are so well complemented by his ability to create engaging visuals that convey complex concepts. His ability to think on his feet and design sessions as new issues emerge was exceptionally gratifying as a co-trainer. When the participants needed more skills on intercultural communication to navigate their own collaborative work, Javier designed an excellent session to fill that emergent need. I highly recommend Javier as a trainer and as a collaborator in general!