TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for SARA MANDOZZI
The aim of the training was to provide participants, who daily work in disadvantage areas such as the outskirts of many EU and SEE cities developing cross-age initiatives, of innovative working methods, based on non formal education and story telling, to strengthen the impact of their cross-age activities.
The group was composed by 21 social workers, representatives of local associations that work with youth, adults and seniors and active volunteers that intend to implement initiatives to facilitate the intergenerational dialogue, cross-age activities and social inclusion projects. Participants came from Italy, France, Romania, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia And Herzegovina and Montenegro.
The interactive methodologies proposed come from the non formal education and the story telling that foresee the active involvement of participants in each stage of the laboratories. During the project the exchange of technical knowledge and competences was costantly encouraged, the different learning approaches stimulated and evaluated through specific sessions on learning assessment.
The decision to use the Story Telling it’s related to its expressive power and its capability to facilitate the interaction between generations. Elderly and their stories represents the immaterial, memory heritage and it’s important to get as much information as possible from the past in order to better understand the present’ dynamics. In the meantime youngsters are the ones appointed to decode these signs, to use their energies to “define” new perspectives and to imprint new values and concrete proposal. This is the so call “being active citizens”. In this scenario the Story telling became the privileged communicative channel among different generations, provided the operative ground where knowledge and experience meet each others and where new proposal took a concrete and a participative shape.
These are the following outcomes achieved through the training:
1. setting of a concrete and well defined analysis of the reasons of social exclusion of specific less privileged target groups (like young people from suburbs and elderly) and development of a concrete strategy to increase their participation to the community life;
2. definition of strategies and proposals to set a clear and well structure inclusion policy, with a specific focus on intergenerational solidarity and participation;
3. development with participants of new working methods – non formal education techniques and story telling - that they can afterwards use in their daily activities with youngsters, adults and elderly;
4. Knowledge transmission: to make participants in condition to practically use the tools learned and shared them. It was expected that on their way back, participants would organize workshops and laboratories to “pass” their knowledge and skills to the youngsters and elderly that attend the activities of their associations.
Setting up of the activity programme and content's development;
Trainer on intercultural learning, social inclusion and cross-ageing workshop.