TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Patrícia Amaro
“Jump into Solidarity” was a Training Course (TC) included in the Networking Activities that aimed to enhance the quality of the European Solidarity projects and support organisations on the development of the main competences related with the projects.
The activity was especially addressed to newcomer organizations/participants but also open to organizations with experience that were interested in knowing new partners. By exploring the new European Solidarity Corps in different dimensions, methods and resources, this TC intend to promote innovation and creativity in the developing of youth volunteering activities by exchanging methods, experiences, points of view and ideas.
The objectives for this TC were:
- to ensure a thorough understanding of the European Solidarity Corps (ESC);
- to explore and understand the different roles within a ESC project ;
- to feel inspired by non formal education methods and exercises that could help the organisations and their actors to fell more empowered and acquire new skills and competences;
- to provide space for sharing realities, experiences and good practice examples;
- to share and exchange new methods for developing competences and recognize learning with young people;
- to provide space for networking between participating organizations and planning of further Partnership Building Activities, Seminars, Volunteering Projects, Solidarity Projects, Traineeships and others.
Participants
89 applications were submitted through www.salto-youth.net from 17 countries.
28 participants (including participants on the waiting list) were pre-selected by their National Agencies. The final numbers to attend were 23 participants, representing 7 countries: Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal.
The trainer's team was informed about the cancellations and organize the training having in mind the number of participants.
The training course was targeted to youth workers and youth leaders working directly with young people. The profile of the participants that attended the training course was mixed in background and experience. There were participants directly working with young people (youth workers), some teachers, volunteers in youth organizations, youth leaders, and project managers. For most of the participants, this TC was their first experience of the program (only 5 participants shared that they had experience in working/participating in Erasmus+ Youth in Action before).
This richness and diversity proved to be a valuable element during the TC once the participants could learn from each other in a safe atmosphere.
The Trainers & coordination team
Trainers:
José Oliveira is portuguese, currently living in Almada. He is a youth worker since 1997 working with young people with fewer opportunities in a non-formal education environment.
His professional experience has been marked by a strong approach to education, training, and socio-cultural intervention in which has the chance to deliver many training courses, seminars, youth exchanges, and community projects.
In the last years, he has gained experience as a trainer and facilitator in the field of Youth Work. After he completes the Training of Trainers (TOT) in 2013, he integrates the Pool of Trainers of the Portuguese NA and has been involved in different national and international activities such as EVS training cycle, TCA, dissemination sessions, Non-Formal Education (NFE) Training Courses, and developed his expertise in topics such as youth empowerment, recognizing learning, volunteering, youth participation, and active citizenship; personal development; inclusion; human rights education; intercultural learning; non-formal education, inclusion through sports and youth work.
He’s also cooperating actively with Associação CAIS in the development of educational tools for the development of personal and social competences.
He has a variety of training skills including using theatre, dance, outdoor activities, and sports.
José enjoys providing the artistic creation of information to participants.
Patrícia Amaro is Portuguese, currently living in Vizela, north of Portugal. She has a degree in Sociology and a Post-Graduation in Social Administration. Her career has been very multidisciplinary, the first projects were in the social field, through a project in the Municipality of Benavente. Always connected with youth and child protection issues. In 2005 she developed a Local School Education Plan, where she implement a non-formal education session until 2011. During 6 months she lived in Cape Verde where she was more involved in formal education approaches. Since 2013, she is the Pool of Trainers of the Portuguese N.A, and has been involved in different activities (EVS Cycle, TCA, Dissemination, Youth Exchanges). During these years she has worked mostly on voluntary, democratic participation, gender equality, human rights, and global education topics.
At this moment, the biggest personal challenge is participation in the TOT Training.
The team had the logistic support of Gonçalo Santos, contracted by the Portuguese National Agency.
The team had the support of the fellow members of the PT National Agency:
Dra Carla Marques
Dr. João Vilaça
Dra. Gabriela Salgado
Dra. Rosa Ferreira who support the team and present the session on European Solidarity Corps
By using non-formal education methods and activities (such as team challenges, brainstorming, reflection spaces, experiential learning, discussion), this TC allowed participants to experience, reflect and learn about how they can create reliable partnerships together and use ESC as a tool to support non-formal learning within their target group.
The training course took place from 3rd to 8th of December 2018. Participants arrived in the afternoon of Monday the 3rd of December and the program of the training course officially started at 18:00 on this day. It ended with departures of all participants on Friday, 8th of December.
During the training course, participants were introduced to the main content elements and to the concept of the training course. The first stages of the training course were initially created and delivered to provide a safe space for getting to know each other, sharing, and learning.
The first evening and the morning of the second day included icebreakers and activities that provided the opportunity for participants to get to know each other, to get to know the environment we worked within, and to begin the experience of non-formal learning. Also on day 2, participants have to move the place of work to another hotel where they feel comfortable with the program and methods. Before the lunch, the group had the visit of the responsible of the PT NA that, in a short session, present the European Solidarity Corps and answer some questions.
After the lunch, the participants were challenged to work together as a team and got the chance to know the organizations that were represented in the training (their aims, objectives, activities, target group,...).
Day 2 ended with the intercultural night, where besides sharing their traditional food and drinks each of the national groups were invited to propose a challenge connected with their culture to other participants.
Day 3 started with the presentation of the individual objects that represent volunteering. Each participant was invited to bring, from home, an object that symbolizes volunteering. On this first part of the morning, the group shares the object and the reason why it represents volunteering in plenary.
The second part of the morning was dedicated to the celebration of volunteering and the group decides to promote the volunteering by creating a kind of a flashmob in the center of Saldanha where they make an energizer and distribute positive messages about volunteering to the people in the street.
After lunch, the group had the chance to know the wonderful gardens of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and they took the opportunity to walk and talk about their role in their organizations and the role of the organizations in their community.
Return to the hotel the group received some outcome on competences in a very practical way where they get the chance to share and to work in a group.
To finalize the day the participants have some individual and team reflection about the day and give some feedback to the team.
At the beginning of day 4, the team decided to give a short time to the group to come up with important questions that should be done in the visits later on.
Day 4 continues with the visit to two organizations that have Erasmus+/Youth in Action and Volunteering projects in Lisbon.
First, the group visited the Associação CAIS in Lisboa and had the opportunity to know the 3 new volunteers that are hosted by the organization. They have the chance to ask and get informed about all the projects that the association has developed in a national and international level.
After this visit, we return to the hotel to get lunch and after the meal, we move around to go to the next association: SPIN which is an association that works with volunteering for more than 15 years. There we have the chance to make a peddy paper in the neighborhood and have a conversation with volunteers about ESC and Erasmus + Programme along with a beautiful sunset and a coffee tea.
The afternoon continues with some free time in Lisbon before the traditional dinner in the city center in a local association.
Day 5, and the last day, started with the open space. 8 workshops were delivered by the participants in a very respectful and useful way. The team organises, in the morning, the workshops and the rooms so the participants could attend every workshop.
After the open space and the lunch, the participants were invited to join in groups of common areas of interest and create a volunteering project having in mind a real partnership. For that, the groups received every 15 minutes, 3 pieces of the puzzle that were the topics of project creation. In this way, they have the chance to realize what are the most important points in a project application and at the same time, they are working on it.
After the group work, they present to the others what they have done and we move for the evaluation part.
The evaluation started by revisiting the program and what happened in the week. The participants had the opportunity to remind the exercises, activities, visits, and work of the PBA. After this moment, the group has a thermometer moment were they evaluate several parts of the TC like the group, team, accommodation and after this, they filled in the evaluation form through google forms survey.
The TC finished with an energic corridor and a group hug and wishing a good work to all.
Knowledge:
Define and explain the European Solidarity Corps, its actions and understand its role in the projects;
Understand the deeper meaning of projects that aim to promote solidarity and volunteering, as well as their benefits for the local community, participants and organizations.
Skills:
To be able to apply new methods that develop skills in young people who participate in CES projects in the areas of Volunteering, Internships and Employment and Solidarity Projects;
Identify potential partners for future projects.
Improve the quality of CES projects with a special focus on partner selection and selection of participants;
In this training, I was responsible for developing the methods to present the competencies (what is competence?) and connect this with the youth pass and present the relevance of youth pass to Erasmus + and European Solidarity Corps.
I was responsible for the reflection moments at the end of the day and connect this moment with self-assessment.