TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Simona Muršec
Aims and objectives:
- Develop
non‐formal
education
training
strategies
and
trainers
pools
as
practical
instruments
of
NYC’s
youth
work,
youth
participation
and
youth
policy
development
as
well
as
youth
organizations
capacity‐building
and
leadership
empowerment;
- Strengthen
NYC’s
role
as
spaces
of
youth
activism
and
participation
in
decision
making
concerning
issues
relevant
to
youth
and
its
contribution
to
the
development
of
society;
- Develop
the
intercultural
dialogue
and
cooperation
among
African
and
European
NYC’s,
youth
organizations
and
youth
leaders envisaging
the
development
of
a
longer
term
strategic
vision
of
the
African‐Europe
NYC’s
cooperation,
so
that
together,
we
can
face
the
current
global
interdependence
challenges
and
identify
possible
solutions
to
the
inequalities
and
inequities
which
still
endure
within
the
North
South
realities.
Target group:
- youth
leaders
from
partner
NYC’s
boards,
young
educators
involved
in
the
NYC’s
and
their
member
organizations;
young
youth
workers,
leaders
and
trainers
who
will
benefit
from
the
National
trainings
for
Trainers.
Pedagogical team:
was composed of the pedagogical coordinator from Portugal, myself as a trainer from Slovenia, a fellow trainer from Spain and a fellow educator from Guinea Bissau. The team and project were supported by a documentalist, who compiled the results and wrote the publication.
Methods used:
The project was designed as an open learning and political process based on experience and exchange between NYC’s, which was therefore involving both youth leaders as decision makers and educators as grassroots youth work practitioners. The first event gathered youth leaders to share best practices of training strategies, trainer’s pools and trainings and reflected on their role in strengthening youth participation, education activities and youth policy development. In between the first residential phase and the third one, the participating youth leaders were expected to discuss the outcomes of the seminar with their NYC’s board and member organizations in order to plan/develop a training strategy including the possibility to create/develop a trainers pool and a plan with different training activities.
The third phase involved educators involved in the NYC’s to reflect on the practices of non‐formal education and training trainers so that they prepared trainings for trainers, which were run in each partner country to support the creation/development of trainer’s pools in each NYC. Between the third and fifth phase, each educator developed a training for trainers in each country.
The fifth and final residential phase involved all participants coming together to evaluate the project and plan future cooperation activities.
All three phases were executed based on the non-formal education principles, we used intercultural learning, human rights education and global education methodologies.
All partners involved executed some kind of national training activity and in the case of several a pool of trainers was established or further developed.
At the end a publication was produced and the biggest achievement was that the project got huge recognition by winning the World Aware Award given by the North South Centre of the Council of Europe.
In 2011 a new cycle of the co-operation project was launched with the same partners and ran successfully.
I was a full member of the pedagogical/training team responsible for creating the flow of the programme and facilitating/training all three residential phases