European Citizenship Training on Ongoing Tools

The training activity took place

in Brussels, Belgium

organised by EFIL

4-10 March

Aims & objectives

The overall aim of the training is to revise the existing tools and objectives of the ECTP programme and to create new tools and strategies to improve the implementation of the programme on national and European level.
- Get an overall picture of Europe, the European Union, the Council of Europe with its institutions and funding programmes as well as European values
- Define Active Citizenship and discuss the European identity in order to come to an understanding of Active European Citizenship
- Reflect on how / what ECTP students should learn during an ECTP programme
- Explore the different national realities of the implementation of the ECTP programme in EFIL countries participating in ECTP
- Experience the different phases of the ECTP programme from the perspectives of ECTP participants, volunteers and (host and sending) families
- Provide feedback on the existing learning tools and their dissemination so far
- Make recommendations for improving existing tools and developing new tools
- Set the basis for their continuous evaluation and monitoring
- Create action plans on national and personal level and provide support for achieving those

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The team was composed by 4 prep-team members from 4 different countries, that is the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Belgium. As for the target group it was constituted of active volunteers in their home organisations who were interested in developing and optimising new learning tools for the European Citizenship Trimester Program. There were a total of 13 participants from 8 different countries.

Training methods used & main activities

We used different kind of Non-Formal based methods throughout the whole training, from silent discussions to world cafés, simulations, team-building exercises, role plays, etc.

Outcomes of the activity

There quite some outcomes in this activity such as:
- 1 national action plan per country;
- 1 personal action plan per participant;
- 1 new ECTP (European Citizenship Trimester Program) manual, which aims at giving AFS national organisations more input on how to better prepare their exchange students and its trainers;
- 1 ECTP promotional video.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was a member of the preparation/trainers' team.