TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Rastislav Zaremba
The project, "Gender equality in Your community," primarily aimed to inform young people about how gender equality could be supported and implemented in local youth projects. It also sought to develop recommendations for ensuring gender equality when working with young people in disadvantaged areas. The project provided an opportunity for young people to explore how gender roles and expectations influenced identity and individual rights, and it aimed to inspire them to address issues rooted in gender norms to achieve greater gender equality in their communities. Considerations included obstacles faced by vulnerable women, such as migrants, women with disabilities, and those in rural areas, as well as the financial crisis's impact on women's rights. Beyond theoretical frameworks, the project focused on human rights knowledge and the technical aspects of implementing local activities to combat gender inequalities and promote women's rights. The project specifically targeted building an inclusive and peaceful society by supporting the fight against gender inequalities and gender-based violence, a pressing issue in local, especially rural, communities. Objectives included identifying challenges young people faced regarding gender equality within the Erasmus+ program, analyzing how gender equality principles could be introduced in local youth centers, and promoting the Gender Equality Strategy as an Erasmus+ priority. Participants actively identified problems through presentations and discussions, and summarized results were included in an e-booklet. Participating organizations also conducted educational events to analyze community situations and propose solutions for gender discrimination prevention and equality. The topic became a priority for future Erasmus+ projects among partners.
A total of 32 participants from 9 countries participated in the project. The participant profile consisted of high school students, university students, and volunteers, as well as active youth workers of any age, predominantly active young people who were members of school and extracurricular communities and interest groups. These participants actively engaged in organizing various events, initiatives, and small festivals, and led interest groups or informal groups of dance, theater, styling, music, or sports clubs. They were familiar with their communities and members, maintained close and regular contact, and relied on mutual trust and respect within these communities. The countries involved were Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Serbia, along with Lithuania.
The training activity employed a non-formal learning methodology. The program started with mutual acquaintance and group building through icebreakers, name games, and short exercises to create a constructive atmosphere. Participants explored the topic and shared personal experiences and country perspectives on gender equality. The methodology included communication-based methods (interaction, dialogue, open discussions), activity-based methods (sharing experiences, practice, and experimentation), socially-oriented methods (partnerships, teamwork, networking), and self-realization methods (creativity, discovery, responsibility, action). The overall participation was participatory, proactive, and interactive, with a learner-centered approach for non-formal education and youth work training. Specific activities included a "Understanding gender equality block" with workshops like "Equality or Equity" (role-playing, brainstorming), "Gender equality in my life/in my community" (individual reflection, presentations, small group work), "The other gender is.../Are you acting like a man or a woman?" (exploring prejudices), and "Path to Equality-land" (group work, imagination, drawing to explore discrimination). A "Promoting gender equality block" featured creating an E-book on gender equality, visiting a local high school for promotion, designing a project booklet, and a "Gender equality in pictures" workshop using Photo-Voice. A "Further action plan block and evaluation" included an Erasmus+ presentation, follow-up activities, and final evaluation with Youthpass certificates.
On the target group level, the project achieved improved protection of women's rights through effective enforcement of existing laws and policies and women's empowerment. Awareness of gender equality increased, and understanding of how gender equality programming contributed to improved humanitarian outcomes was enhanced. Local actors' ability to monitor gender-sensitive outcomes and design gender-responsive humanitarian interventions improved. Participants acquired and developed more skills, competencies, and knowledge, and learned to use the workshops' results and methods to promote gender equality and develop new local projects. They gained new resources for expressing opinions, communicating, and increasing active youth participation in combating gender inequality. Participants also became advocates for new tools and approaches within the Council of Europe's and EU's Gender Equality Strategy. Key outcomes were measured by self-evaluation forms to identify developed competencies, the number of projects initiated by participants in follow-up, and the number of participants retained in active roles. The project's impact on all levels was based on increasing the experience, capacity, and activity of involved associations, and implementing new high-quality local actions and European projects involving local youth. The organization became more visible, participated in other projects, developed new youth leaders, and exchanged best practices. New projects involved new partners, leading to new contacts and possibilities. Indicators for measuring impact included evaluation reports, new member counts, community feedback, new youth center activities, new partnerships, and new projects in which the organization became involved as a partner. Dissemination activities included a final event at a high school, an e-booklet created by participants and shared with organizations, and community presentations and articles in local media by participants from Lithuania and Bulgaria. Participants from Poland and Serbia presented results at community or organizational levels. Partners from Poland and Romania published information on their websites and social media. Slovak participants conducted a short presentation of results and the Erasmus+ program at their high school.
Rastislav Zaremba was listed as a trainer for this project. He had extensive experience in youth work since 2005, specifically in non-formal education since 2010. He had completed traineeships in community organizing and leadership development, had rich experience from various youth exchanges, training sessions, and seminars, and served as a project coordinator for over 15 Youth in Action/Erasmus+ projects. Notably, he had been a trainer in 7 Youth in Action/Erasmus+ projects. The trainers who led the training had rich experience with the topic and methodology of non-formal education. They were given space to adapt the program based on their creativity or methodology to also suit the participants' needs.