TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Marta Skorczynska
This project anticipated developing competences of youth workers to communicate in a nonviolent way – acknowledging own and others’ needs, recognising and expressing emotions, building peaceful relations with young people, and co-workers. It related to the existing need among trainers, facilitators, youth leaders, and project coordinators to approach situations of conflict and misunderstanding in their work environment with a fresh perspective. Especially working with multinational and cross-cultural groups, youth at risk, migrants and refugees, where backgrounds, contexts and understandings might be so different, and may lead to frustrations in the communication process.
This activity involved youth workers from the following countries: Portugal, Spain, Romania, Italy, France, Estonia, Greece and Poland. The trainers' team came from Poland.
Name of the project comes from two main methodologies upon which has been constructed the programme for the activity of the project. THEATRE refers to applied drama methodology and embodied learning in movement. NONVIOLENT refers to emphatic communication language from Nonviolent Communication method by Marshall Rosenberg.
The frame for learning in this training course was created with methods and techniques from applied drama. From building a safe and emphatic environment, participants were invited to become more aware and familiar with their body, and later encouraged to take roles, explored various desires, and improvised in search for different strategies in the communication process. The content to practise in that frame was based in the Nonviolent Communication method. Participants discovered the meaning of needs and emotions for reaching a satisfactory compromise in a conflict situation. Using MINDFULNESS techniques they practised the skills to form observations free from opinions, recognise and express needs and feelings.
Participants of the course have developed emphatic attitude, shared their challenges, contacted with their emotions and needs, went through experienced frustrations and approached them as a resource for learning. They have improved knowledge and skills in Nonviolent Communication as a tool to deal with similar situations in the future. There has been a manual created describing the methods used with inspiration for further use (to be published soon...)
I was part of the trainers' team, responsible for introducing applied drama activities and facilitating an embodied Nonviolent Communication practice for participants.