TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Panayiotis Theodorou
Aims and objectives of Open rurality are…
The overall objective of the seminar is to support the growth of human and social capital at European level, through a project of international mobility geared to the exploration of a topic of global interest: OPEN RURALITY gives space and voice to our definition(s) of "rural social innovation", facilitating critical reflection on what is meant by this tag, globally and locally, in Europe and in particular in the countries involved in the project, allowing us to participate actively in the
international debate and creating a dimension of "open rurality" through the dissemination of project results.
The aims of OPEN RURALITY
- Increase in participants the level of awareness on the issue of rural social innovation and its high potential impact in
social change;
- Trigger a peer-to-peer learning process and methodology through NFE/NFL by sharing best practices, experiences
and rural social innovation projects, with particular reference to the participating countries;
- Establish a "common understanding" on the topic;
- Compare the "common understanding" with direct experience in the field, meeting local rural-social projects locate
near the venue of the seminar;
- Create and disseminate, with a shared communication strategy, an "open database" containing all the information and
data co-generated during the seminar.
Target and number of participants per organization
We ask to each partner organization to send 3 participants.
WHO?
OPEN RURALITY welcomed participants interested and motivated to participate in a learning process shared on issues of rural and social innovation in rural areas, with diverse backgrounds: we recruited participants who already had a compatible background with the central theme of the project, like "young neorural innovators" or
"willing-to be", interested in deepening and expanding on the international front their knowledge/ideas in the field of social innovation, with particular reference to its rural applications and the potential for development that results at
the local and international level. Countries involved: Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, France, Romania, Greece, Italy.
The methodological approach of the seminar was based on non-formal education/learning methodology with aim to fully involve participants, to generate ideas coming from participants and to strongly focus the topics of the seminar. A big space for discussing and learning was created using “open space” methods. A relevant time was dedicated also to personal reflection for the sake of keeping the track of the personal (learning) process and raising awareness about it.
Outcomes
What do we want to learn together? The outcomes were:
- Raising awareness of the seminar topic/emerging phenomenon;
- Being able to identify the differences and peculiarities of rural soc inn projects;
- Recognising and promoting the value and potential of local and international development originating from the rural social projects;
- Knowing the state (in terms of rural soc inn) in other European countries and establish a "common understanding"
[output: OPEN RURAL database];
- Making direct field experience and discover, in the light of shared reflection, rural projects aimed at social innovation
[output: "Photo (video) voice gallery"];
- Experiencing "smart rurality" [output: all the results of the communication campaign and all the seminar outputs].
a role of a trainer, meaning that I was responsible for design, implementation and evaluation of the training program. The training program was reviewed and evaluated every day and adjusted according to the learning needs of participants.
I worked on this training for 6 days as a full time trainer.