TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Anna Sipos
The aims of the project were:
- to improve entrepreneurship competences of youth
- to support the generation to participate actively in society and become creators of sustainable communities, civic and business initaitives. So that youth work and non-formal learning have a significant impact in this field, competences of both youngsters and youth workers need improvement.
Key areas of intervention:
- coaching teams of youth workers and young people in the start, realisation, and evaluation of projects, initiatives and social business
- tools for monitoring and quality improvement
- human resources management of youth projects
In our partnership, youth workers and NGO staff needed to develop a common skill-set and understanding of the context, approach and the methods to raise the quality and efficiency of their projects.
The project involved 2 10 days long training courses, in which both the same organizations were partners, but sent different people to the 2 activities.
Target group were youth workers, volunteers of youth associations, coaches, trainers, peer educators, teachers, young entrepreneurs.
Countries involved: Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands
- learning by experiment
- the international „Synergy” method, applied in a specific approach to get out the maximum of the personal and professional development of participants. The Synergy method is strongly practical, based on experiencing ourselves in different situations and reflect on it afterwards
- 3 days outdoor activity within the training
- team building processes
- individual self expression processes
- communication styles
- relection groups
- sharings
- elevator picth presentations
- self-regulated learning
This project with the 2 trainings involved 76 participants all together. They developed their own initiatives and social business ideas after the training course and are still using the method they have learned. According to our evaluation the training had a big impact on their personal life, how they approach people, how they communicate and how much they focus on reaching their goals. They all completed a 3 days-long outdoor program in the end of the 2 trainings which was a big success where they put in practice all what they learned in the first past of the trainings. 3 participants of the first training came cak to assist in the second activity. New cooperations and european projects were born between the participants. The group was highly international and intecultural, it gave a very inspiring atmosphere to the participants. 4 new informal groups were formed in 4 countries after the project.
Together with another trainer were were the ones to be responsible for the personal and professional development of the participants, we took very active role in preparing the program elements, refreshing content and tailor the synergy method to this specific target group. I was responsible especailly for the parts concerning social entrepreneurship. Together with the other trainers we shared the program parts to lead, I led short lectures, long processes, movement workshops, reflection groups, sharings during the training course, we evaluated the results int he end of the training and supported the participants with coaching and mentoring to realize their follow-up activities after the training and to start their own social businesses, social entreprises, initiatives.