TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Nunzio Soricaro
The project aimed to respond to a lack of leadership and active participation of young people within the IFS network at the European level. In the face of problems of social exclusion, discrimination, and youth unemployment in France and in Europe, the project aimed at strengthening the capacity of involved organizations in enhancing youth active participation, engagement, European citizenship while reinforcing their capacity to take action.
Specific objectives were as follows:
- to enhance youth engagement, active participation and citizenship of young leaders
- to reinforce young leaders’ capacity to take action
- to create a « training resource space » among members of IFS
The project was structured in two steps: the first training took place in France and focused on youth active participation, leadership and community engagement; the second took place in Sweden and dealt with developing youth-led local actions.
The main target group accounted for active volunteers and young leaders of the 3 involved organizations, all members of IFS (France, UK and Sweden).
Based on experiential learning and learning-by-doing, all theoretical inputs were discussed and conclusions were made jointly in order to achieve participants’ full understanding of the contents. All sessions were interactive, demand participants’
active involvement and consist of group work activities as well as individual and/or group reflections.
Examples of educational modules and methods:
- Definition of leadership and leadership styles (Photolangage)
- Sharing good practices of youth engagement (Open Space)
- From idea to action (Action Learning Sets)
- European citizenship (Role model - simulation of European Parliament)
- Sharing experiences of youth-led projects (Living Library)
The main outcome of the activity was starting a virtuous process to reinforce the capacity of the 3 members of IFS to support youth-led actions for community development.
I coordinated the pool of trainers, composed of a representative of each involved organization. I have also been in charge of developing the pedagogical contents of the educational modules.