TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Spela Gorjan
A journey trough different storytelling techniques (from tales around the fire to video games) as tools to support learning and increase the effectiveness, the enjoyment and the impact of your work with young people.
"Share the Right Story" is a Mobility of Youth Workers activity promoted by the Slovenian NGO Youth Aid Centre Association - YACA. The course wants to make trainers, facilitators and youth workers aware of the many and various uses of the non-formal educational method of Storytelling and show them how it can be used to work with young people, helping them to develop a big number of important abilities and competences in the professional and personal sphere. Our love for story is universal. And we use story all the time. Every time we understand a new set of data, learn a new skill, change an attitude, or share a part of ourselves with others, we do it through formulating some sort of a story. By using the storytelling process consciously, we can learn how to increase the effectiveness, robustness, and enjoyment of our work with young people and not only!
The main objectives of this training course were:
to identify and understand key elements and skills for storytelling, and explore their
potential benefits for learning, personal development and employability;
to analyze the increased impact that stories (and media) have on phenomena such as
“hate speech”, intolerance and open racism. We will discuss the new needs for
awareness, ethics and knowledge that come with the social and digital era;
to explore the concept of “transformational storytelling”: using storytelling as an
innovative tool to address change and personal development;
to use elements of gamification to make youth work more attractive and accessible to
young people (especially those with fewer opportunities);
to create an international network of youth workers and organisations, able to use
storytelling to develop skills and methods and to have an innovative impact on local
levels.
The team included 5 members, 2 from Italy, 1 from Czechia and 2 from Slovenia. There were 26 participants from 13 countries.
The activities were based on non-formal and experiential learning methodologies, all centered
on different aspects of Storytelling. We worked on the most classic and traditional forms
(circle) to the most contemporary, like cinema, comics and videogames.
The expected learning outcomes for the participants are:
to be trained on, and receive information about, innovative approaches based on
Storytelling, illustrating specialistic concepts such as the Monomyth, the Way of Council,
Gamification - and the work methodologies related to them - combining theory, practice
and sharing reflections and good practice tips with trainers and colleagues;
to get more proficient in the understanding and use for educational purposes of Comics,
Videogames, Board Games - all media very popular in the youth culture;
to increase awareness and learn how to better tackle in youth work their potential
negative effects, as well: the risk of addiction and escapism from reality, the possible
manipulation and propaganda uses that can be done by authorities, political and social
actors, governments.
Theatre and role-playing and practices of personal storytelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j944egNSRxk
I was responsible both for graphic harvest of the process as well as managing, supporting the project from the beginning to an end.