TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Mayssa Rekhis
- To share experiences on the concepts of democracy, human rights and democratic citizenship and their relevance for local, national or international youth projects in European and Arab societies
- To discuss and identify criteria for quality in youth projects related to democratic youth participation
- To explore current developments and new trends in democratic participation in the European and Arab contexts
- To review and enhance participants’ competences (knowledge, skills, attitudes) in working as trainers/facilitators with democratic participation in non-formal learning settings.
- To strengthen participants competences to work with Compass and the T-Kit Mosaic, and adapting their activities to their contexts
- To support participants in developing cooperation projects based on democratic youth participation and aiming to impact on youth policies
Young activists and youth workers from the MENA region and Europe.
The training seminar consisted of three phases and was built on the principles of non-formal learning, human rights education and non-formal learning. The methodology builds on principles of participation, learner-centeredness and dialogical learning. This included peer to peer support, mentoring and sharing (and learning from participants experiences with training for democratic youth participation following their involvement in one of the two courses for trainers).
Phase 1 – E-learning - getting ready for the course (November 2013)
Phase 2 – The residential training seminar (29 Nov – 6 Dec 2013)

Phase 3 – Follow-up (January - July 2014)
This phase was mainly for consolidating learning, supporting participants in their follow-up (projects, learning) and enabling networking between participants and trainers. Some new learning units were also proposed based on individual needs of participants.
Participants gained a clear understanding of democratic youth participation, explored the different practices form the two regions (Euro and Arab regions) and gained facilitation and training skills related to the topic.
I was a full team member, I participated to the prep meeting 2 weeks before the training, to the online preparation phase, the residential seminar and the follow up.
I have designed session outlines, delivered a number of sessions, and co-delivered others.