TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Leticia Usanovich de Menezes
Azes Valboenses collaborated with the community of Cabrum Ecovillage to create a work camp project focused on promoting healthy and sustainable lifestyles and democratic participation, integrating the local community with international young participants.
The general objectives were:
- To promote the cultural valorisation of local ecosystems;
- To allow participants to develop citizenship skills while actively contributing to the rehabilitation of important elements of cultural and environmental heritage;
- To promote healthier and more sustainable lifestyles during the work camp and also in their communities once they returned home;
- To improve the intercultural and social skills of participants, reinforcing the importance of cooperation and citizenship in building a fairer and more caring world.
Azes Valboenses' work is focused on promoting youth empowerment through the creation of opportunities for growth and development. Local and international partnerships are an essential part of this work, therefore, working in collaboration with Cabrum Ecovillage's community and IPDJ (Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, who funded the project) meant strengthening this network of partnerships while generating impact in the young participants that joined the work camp.
The target group of the project was young people (aged between 18 and 30) interested in living an international work experience and learning more about alternative and sustainable ways of living. By joining the project, participants had the opportunity to learn about bio-construction methods and techniques while also developing socio-emotional skills like intercultural awareness, adaptability, honest communication, relationship with the self and others, relationship with nature, and change-making capacity, among others.
Considering the team and participants, we had people from Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, France, Germany and Italy.
The activities related to bio-construction and local flora observation were carried out by leaders of Cabrum Ecovillage's community. Their methodology was focused on the connection with nature and forest wisdom. Some of the activities were, 5 hours of daily work with community leaders to learn about bio-construction methods used by them, garden visits to learn about the food grown in the village, a walk to explore the local flora, and two night walks with meditation and stargazing to enhance the connection with the self and nature around us.
Azes Valboenses's team was responsible for delivering activities focused on team building and the development of social-emotional skills. All of the programme was designed and facilitated having peer learning as a core methodology, inviting the participants to be at the centre of their own learning process while offering them the structure and support that they needed to achieve their learning goals.
At the beginning of the programme, we developed a few activities that gave the participants space to create connections amongst themselves and develop a sense of group, something that was essential to enhance the community learning that came after.
In the middle of the programme, as we started going deeper into the personal and collective development of the group, we proposed activities around important topics for more sustainable ways of relating to each other and life in society, such as privilege and power dynamics, social identities, understanding mainstream and margins, and capacity for change-making.
We closed the experience with reflections and documentation about learnings and intentions for the participants' journeys ahead. There was also space for celebration and nurturing of the relationships that they created with each other.
During the work camp the group built, with the support of Cabrum Ecovillage's team, a structure for a new dry toilet and a shower for the community as well as cleaned and restored several parts of the Camino de Santiago that goes through the village.
Concerning the activities focused on socio-emotional skills and life in society, the feedback from the participants (in a formal final evaluation and also informally throughout the programme) was that they really enjoyed being in spaces where they could discuss complex and complicated issues in a generative way, while also expanding their mind vision around those subjects. Although we recognise that it's hard to measure this kind of development and impact in such a short term, we had a common practice of ending activities by asking them "What are you taking away from this?", and some examples of what came up are: realising how we sometimes are in the margins but also sometimes in the mainstream and how it's easier to break out of toxic behaviours if we are aware of those dynamics; feeling more aware about social identities and intersectionality; feeling more empowered about acting to disrupt systems of oppression; feeling safe to share and be vulnerable with a group as a practice; feelings hopeful about things we can do to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.
I was the lead designer and co-facilitator of the part of the programme focused on the development of socio-emotional skills and life in society.
Along with the team of Azes Valboenses, I co-created the learning journey that the participants went through and facilitated most of the activities in this area. We had a daily routine of asking for feedback from the participants about the activities of the day and then iterating the approach into the activities of the following day. I was mainly responsible for making sure this iteration was happening in a smooth and consistent way.
I also facilitated activities specifically with Azes Valboenses' team where we documented victories, failures, and learnings to be carried into future projects led by the Association.