TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Eleni Michail
The aim of the meeting was the evaluation of achievements, prevention (wherever necessary), exchange of ideas and good practices and the systematic planning of future steps towards further development of the EVS projects and the volunteer experience in general.
The specific objectives of the meeting were:
To empower the “informal” volunteers’ network – that is mainly rooted in the “on arrival seminars” – through coexistence, interaction and exchange of experiences so that cooperation between them is increased.
To offer a vital space for personal and group reflection with regards to the participants as volunteers and as “persons” so that they can accommodate their experience so far, realize their current situation and project themselves in the future.
To integrally evaluate participants’ EVS projects towards prevention and resolution (where needed) of conflicts or even crises.
To share and process information related to the triptych Youth – European Union – Mobility accenting this way the meaningfulness of EVS in a person’s further development.
The meeting was organized by the Cyprus NA of the YiA Programme and targeted the EVS volunteers hosted in Cyprus at that time.
The meeting involved 12 participants from Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine and Spain who were long EVS volunteers in Cyprus. My colleague was Konstantinos Spathiotis from Greece.
The meeting was implemented on the principles and methods of non-formal education.
Example of session:
Title of the session: Our EVS
Objective of the session:
- To share the EVS programmes volunteers were working on
- To bond the group
Activities:
Participants were asked to describe their EVS projects, by creating an architect plan. They should map the place they work in and explain where, when and what they do. Participants were divided according their hosting organizations in this part.
Participants were asked to share with each other their plans
Later on, on individual level, participants had to visualize their life path, what brought them here etc. They needed to draw it and share it with the rest of the group as a means to bond them.
A small plenary discussion followed this.
The training course was very useful for the participants and received a very good evaluation from them.
My role was to work as a full time trainer. My tasks included communication and cooperation with my co-trainer, as well as the National Agency. Together with my colleague we prepared the training course, delivered it and prepared final report. During the days of the course, we had daily meetings to evaluate the process and progress of the course and the participants and when needed, adjustments to the planned sessions were done. In addition, we remained at the disposal of the participants for any individual guidance needed.