TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Matteo Lombardi
The project was a multilateral training on nonviolent conflict management and theatre of the oppressed for youth leaders, educators and multipliers working with young people in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (coming both from Formal and Non Formal education sector) engaged in context of conflict. The subject of the training course experienced the conflict transformation based on social, political and economic stereotypes using the Theatre of the Oppressed techniques and the Training method.
Both the Theatre of the Oppressed techniques and the Training Method have been successfully applied to social work, in particular with the youth in the past years. The workshop was promoting the exchange of experiences and work methodologies among the participants and it provide them different additional tools for social change using theatre techniques. A specific focus was on the active involvement of the youth in fighting stereotypes and discrimination in promoting intercultural dialogue and social inclusion
The project wanted to stimulate people to use their creativity and react on what is happening around them. The course was designed to create the space where participants experience and reflect upon activities and concepts central to human rights education based on experiential learning approaches. The course was also designed as a space for mutual learning, where participants exchange their approaches to training and compare human rights situation, especially regarding human rights issues, across the Mediterranean Area in a dialogical intercultural approach and environment.
The previous experience of participants, in the formal and non-formal sectors, was the starting point of the programme and of the learning process
Target Group:
youth leaders, educators and multipliers working with young people in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (coming both from Formal and Non Formal education sector) engaged in context of conflict
Countries involved:
Czech Republic, Italy, Palestine , Serbia, Lebanon.
Team of trainers:
Matteo Lombardi, main trainer, Sara Sozzi, second trainer.
The course used a variety of methods and tools from non-formal education, such as:
interactive workshops of visual arts, discussions , team building exercises , simulations , field work within the neighbourhood , theatre games and role play ,use of Information Technology , reflection groups.
Main area/issue touched by the workshop
• Identity/ identities
• Differences or inequalities
• Conflicts transformation
• Theatre of oppressed
At the end of the project the participants perform the theatre forum scene they prepared. They choose to create three performances, one for each level of the conflict (micro-level, medium level, macro-level). We performed at the same place we provided the training and invited the local community, and the media. We also registered the performance and make a cd with it. Also Casa per la Pace created an online folder where all participants could find the exercise and the main tools of the methodologies we used. We create a Facebook page, in order to stay in touch and share the results of the training.
Participants of the training gave a very positive feedback already at the end of course, then again in the evaluation questionnaires and in their Youth passes.
My role was to teach new tools and to facilitate the course (in a team of two/three) I also coordinate all the activities which took part in it. My area of expertise during the course was mainly leading the group to prepare a forum theatre performance, expose what is Theatre of the Oppressed and the different tools it offered, facilitate the process and the group dynamic, and being a jolly during the final performance with a public.