TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Blandine Scrève
The purpose of this training was to give tools to the youth workers and future trainers to understand this tendency better, to encourage tolerance, to stimulate self reflexion and critical mind. Methods of youth training courses were taught to sustain the impact of the project at the local level of the participants. A youth training courses network was established on the subject in the different concerned countries, to work on tolerance, unity in diversity and fight against xenophobic ideas with youths and in schools. We worked on the knowledge and experiences of the participants to share the good practices and go deeper in the subject. A better understanding of the current fears, the medias, how far-right parties perceive European identity and what they construct as a threat of the « other » for their countries and for Europe was achieved.
Dialogue is a special form of communication, in which participants seek to actively create greater mutual understanding and deeper insight. Dialogue, as a right of speaking, being listened to and respected, has always been the key element of democracy. We believe that using dialogue, establishing a mutual cultural comprehension and developing the critical mind of young people is the groundwork to fight against shortcut ideas and populism that can lead to fears, hate and discriminations between the populations and communities.
Main Objectives:
✓ To give the participants basic activities and tools of dialogue in order to facilitate workshops on intercultural differences and communication, fears, stereotypes and discrimination.
✓ To practice tools and methods of youth training courses in order to plan training courses back in their country for sustainable future development of the project at local levels.
✓ To explore the rise of far-right parties in a context of economical crises, the use of fears, people’s lack of knowledge and patriotism, to promote their ideas of racisms, intolerance and isolationism. To put it in perspective with the concept of a « national culture ».
✓ To put in evidence the links between medias and politics, their role in today society, and the necessity to develop the curiosity and the critical mind of youth to help them think by themselves, search and analyse information.
✓ To make the participants sharing their experience as youth workers and facilitate them to share their best practices through workshops, helping each other to develop their teaching skills.
✓ To develop a common understanding between participants and organizations, and instruments on the rise of populist parties in Europe to continue working together on the subject during following projects.
Lateral objectives:
✓ To discuss future means of distribution of knowledge that can be used to extend the impacts of the exchange at a local and regional level and promote it.
✓ To assess best practices and common pitfalls in the field of youths trainings.
The proposed training course addressed members of the youth partner organizations involved in, interested to learn, exchange and develop new methods about the topic, critical mind, social cohesion, communication and citizen values. The participants had to be involved to multiply the effects of the project within their local communities by becoming themselves further trainers. The main target group was composed of professional or volunteer youth workers, trainers, EVS mentors or project managers all working in the youth sector. The selection of participants for this course was made by the partner organizations after the approval of the project according to the eligibility criteria as follows.
Germany ; Greece ; Hungary ; Italy ; Netherlands ; Poland ; Slovakia ; Sweden ; Denmark ; UK ; Latvia and France.
International Training team : Danmark, Greece and France
The program of the course was based on non formal education and will be conducted using an interactive and participative approach. Active group/team work, role-plays, outdoor activities and plenary discussions, as well as theoretical inputs and technical learning characterized the program of the course in order to cover all aspects of the project themes. Special attention was paid to the fact that the competences and the knowledge gained and transmitted during the course remain sustainable and transferable. This was achieved by setting up enough space and time for reflection and evaluation, by providing expertise, comprehensive documentation, handouts and guidance from the trainers’ team. A finished workshop pack of methods was given to the participants at the end of the training so that they could use it at the return in their own countries. Tools was taught and, on the basis of their already existing projects in their
sending organizations, participants were also invited to share good practices, to exchange useful information, and work intensively in order to improve their training skills with youths in regards to the subject of this training course.
The program of activities included :
- non formal education workshop
- active participation workshop : what is it ? How to enhance it ? Building concrete initiatives.
- Dialogue workshop
- European Institutions workshops
- Project managment
- Networking
- Main coordinator of the training team
- Trainer specialised in non formal education, active participation, project management and networking