Increasing Intercultural Competences

Aims & objectives

The project ‘Increasing Intercultural Competences and Awareness of Youth Workers’ aimed to address the following NEEDS that the consortiums of 10 youth organizations active in the field of international youth work identified to be essential to them: -the NEED to provide their youth workers who were involved so far in local, or national activities the opportunity to develop their competencies to work in international settings as participants, but also as youth workers delivering activities; -the NEED to gain needed intercultural competencies, to increase their intercultural awareness to enable them to work with mix- cultural groups at the local, and national levels. - the NEED to increase their capacities to create their own projects with the support of the Erasmus + Programme. Youth workers are motivated to take work more actively with the Erasmus + Programme, especially with youth exchanges, training courses and youth participation activities.

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

"IICAYW" took place in the beautiful city of Graz, Austria and involved 30 youth workers from North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Italy, Spain, and France.

Training methods used & main activities

Participants get in touch with theoretical approaches to intercultural learning, including ‘Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, ‘Dimensions’ of Cultures’ and more. They developed the skills to practically apply these approaches to their work with young people with the aim to increase their intercultural competencies and awareness. We analyzed the challenges, and obstacles of delivering youth work activities in intercultural settings and the participants get equipped with the skills needed to address them.
After the theoretical part, the participants had to create and lead their own workshop. They have been provided with the basic structure and, working in teams, they developed their idea following the trainer's instructions. Once they finalized the preparation of the workshop, they had the opportunity to implement it directly during the next session, receiving constructive tips and feedback from their colleagues. All the workshops have been drafted digitally in order to be part of this document and to be useful for other educators and organisations.

Outcomes of the activity

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17j2ptT-jKu1X8JYpN4t2Dy7Y9viD0it1/view?usp=sharing

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

Trainer

I worked on this training for 8 days as a full time trainer.

Testimonial of the reference person

Emanuel was extra...the participants love him. Always on time and full with positivity.