TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Antonino Imbesi
Leadership for Employability was a training course organised by the Italian not for profit association Youth Europe Service (Y.E.S.) .
The course involved totally 25 participants among 21 young people and 4 trainers coming from 10 countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey and UK).
The activity was organised and realised in Potenza (the capital of Basilicata region) in Italy.
It started 13/11/2016 (day of arrival of participants in Potenza) and ended 20/11/2016 (day of departure of participants from Potenza), with a total duration of 8 days.
The group of participants was accomodated in GRANDE ALBERGO, a 4 star hotel (with half board - breakfats and dinners included) in the centre of the town, and, for the training course activities, it was hosted in GODESK, a coworking and innovation space, very active as business accelerator as it offers a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities. The lunch was served as catering in the the lunch area of the mentioned coworking where all the participants had the opportunity also to share ideas and opinions with startuppers, entrepreneurs, professionals, etc.,
Every day the group of participants was moved from the hotel to the coworking office (and back) using a bus specifically reserved for it.
During the training course, was realised an intensive, innovative and challenging training programme with social activities, visits, discussions, debates, energyzers, icebreakings, workgroups, etc.
Participants had a benefit from a personal profile exercise normally available only to professionals in the corporate sector.
The training course was a real unique opportunity for bright and motivated young people (including from from disadvantaged backgrounds or facing different kinds of exclusion) to understand leadership and develop their employability skills, led by internationally respected trainers.
The methodology used for this project was in the form of non-formal education mixed with experiential learning: the strong pedagogical approach used combined non formal learning and practical challenges with in depth personal and group reflection and review, leading to potentially dramatic change.
Participants get a deep understanding of their own leadership style, their career ambitions and motivations, and the next steps they needed for their career development.
The result obtained was very strong and effective: all the participants declared to have obtained benefits from the project and to be very interested to ralise new Erasmus actions.
For all the participants it was also prepared and given the YouthPass.
Participants on this training course were 21 young people mostly facing situations of fewer opportunities or serious difficulty in finding appropriate employment and 4 trainers (3 from Italy and 1 from UK). They had a strong motivation for international opportunity and in most cases were young youth workers, volunteers or youth leaders within the partner organisations. They were, in many cases, already active in their communities but they needed development of leadership skills, in which we included general soft skills and professionalism including team work, communication , presentation, intercultural awareness and so on.
Participant selection by all partners followed our specified criteria, to avoid excessive disparities in age, motivation or language competence, and to ensure as far as possible an even gender balance within the project as below.
The project was directly linked to the needs and interests of the participants and provided a measurable impact on their employability prospects.
The project was intended for the leaders and active members of youth organizations from the 10 partners, countries.
The participants in total and there were 25 participants (of which 15 with fever opportunities) includingh the 4 trainers/facilitators (3 from Italy and 1 from UK).
The background of our participants:
-Youth workers, leaders, trainers, multipliers
-High motivation
-More than 18 years
-Gender balance
-Sufficient understanding of English.
Participants were selected according to their application forms and their interested in the topic. the selection was made by each partners organisation with the agreement of the coodinating organism.
Participants were actively engaged in all project stages – before the training they had to write down their follow-up project idea and send it to the organizers. They communicated with organizers, trainers and other participants in specially created facebook group and via e-mailing list. During the project they had the main role in all workshops.
The meeting included several different working methods:
- Informal education methods and intercultural learning method (ice breakings, energyzers, brainstorms, role games etc);
- Workshops, workgroups and trainings on the topics such as leadership, European сitizenship, project management, Erasmus+ Programme , etc.;
- Panel discussions;
- Presentations;
- Group works on the project development;
- Local visits
- Discussions and debates
All the planned activities related to the project context, namely the employment situation of participants, the development of a sustainable development framework continuing to the follow-on phase and the aim of delivering a high quality and impactful experience.
The objective of the activities, individually and in total, was to give participants leadership skills and insights which should have a direct positive impact.
We managed to gather young people from all around Europe: young people from Eastern Partnership and EU gathered together and talked about different unemployment problems and ways to find job opportunities in different parts of Europe.
The training course covered the issue of European citizenship in a manner that contribute to the young people’s education processes
and increase their awareness of the European context in which they live promoting them into active European citizens.
The training course increased young people’s positive awareness and acceptance of other cultures and celebrate diversity.
This project promoted young people as active and equally important cells of Europe, leaders and motivators of positive changes and builders of the European future and perspectives.
This was a great base for their further work on the new projects.
At the end of the course various new Erasmus Plus projects were planned.
We have also created a strong network of youth organisations: this new cooperation network for intercultural experience will for sure bring a lot of new ideas to the world. These young people will certainly work on several other projects, together with the ones planned during the training course in Italy.
Also we have improved:
- the skills, qualifications and personal development of all the participants
- the knowledge of the Erasmus Plus programme and of the Youth initiatives at european level.
Moreover we have introduced in the participants' organisations the innovative character of our working methods and skills.
One of the 4 trainers