TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Ruzanna Ivanian
The Enter! Project highlighted youth work response to violence, exclusion and discrimination affecting young people in Russian Fede and promoted access to social rights
The course included different elements:
• residential seminars (the first residential seminar took place on 17-22 October 2016, in Penza, Russian Federation, the second took place 28 October-3 November 2017 at EYCB);
• e-learning stage (starting from September 2016 and finishing in October 2017);
• projects implemented by participants (starting from January 2017 and finishing in August 2017);
• mentoring (starting from October 2016 and finishing in October 2017).
The course is a European level complementary training for youth workers, which aimed to develop their competences in designing and implementing responses, projects, partnerships in support of youth-led initiatives that promote access to social rights and overcome discrimination, exclusion and violence.
The objectives of the long-term training course on access of young people to social rights and autonomy through youth work for representatives of authorities and non-governmental organisations working with young people in the Russian Federation were identified as:
1. To introduce participants to evidence based needs analysis, to socio-educational project designing, management, implementation and evaluation
2. To support participants to develop socio-educational projects with young people that promote access to social rights and overcome discrimination, exclusion and violence
3. To develop participants’ understanding and knowledge of the human rights framework and the policy fields and mechanisms that are relevant to the situation of young people with whom they work, from the local to the European level;
4. To support participants in using human rights based approaches and human rights education in their youth work
5. To contribute to the social and educational recognition of youth work and non-formal education in participants’ realities and at European level
6. To develop participants’ competence and confidence for engaging with policy makers and other actors in the youth and social policy fields for improving access to social rights for young people.
The process of participant’s selection was carried out according to the quality standards of Council of Europe. The background idea was to target experienced youth workers and youth leaders who are already active in their work with young people but need more competences in field of social rights and human rights based approach.
Diversity of participant’s profiles brought variety of practices and experiences of working with young people. In the end the group was combined of 20 participants from the different regions of the Russian Federation (Krasnoyarsk region, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Tula region, Kirov region, Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Penza region, Republic of Karelia, Republic of Tatarstan, Samara region, Yaroslavl region) and 5 participants from the other countries- parties of the European Cultural Convention – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus.
The programme of the residential seminars was based on the principles and practice of non-formal education with a specific focus on following methodological principles:
• learner-centred approach which takes into account the needs, interests and experiences of participants,
• active participation principle (the programme was built on sharing experiences and expertise among the group members),
• flexibility (adaptation of the programme during the seminar happened according to the particular needs and feedback of the group and flow of the discussions),
• holistic approach (personal reflections were followed by interactive inputs from the guest speakers and experts and group sharing),
• group was approached as a source of learning.
It is also important to stress that course adopted a human rights-based approach to social exclusion, discrimination and violence. This includes the awareness of social rights, as part of the practice of human rights education in youth work. Human rights education is also the basis for the conflict transformation approach that youth projects, as part of the Enter! project, seek to adopt.
• This course has helped many of the participants to reflect on their work through a different perspective. It has broadened their horizons, widened the list of possible actions they may implement, gave more understanding and food for reflections. Participants feel more confident in many respects. They became aware about a number of completely new approaches and topics in youth work such as non-formal education, social rights and intercultural learning.
• Participants significally improved their core competences and learnt how to plan, implement and evaluate socio-educational initiatives which promote access to social rights and overcome discrimination, exclusion and violence; how to prepare, run and evaluate non-formal educational activities; how to communicate, present and report on their actions to a variety of audiences etc.
• Participants got inspired and motivated to continue or to start working on the access of young people to social rights. They are more aware now which paths and roles they may take. They are more enthusiastic about it but in the same time more realistic. Participants realize their role, level of influence and possible contribution in promoting access of young people to rights at different levels.
Full-time trainer