TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Victoria Baltag
PROJECT OBJECTIVES:
1. To enrich the personal development opportunities, individual skills and competencies of youth workers from EU and Non-EU countries;
2. To create a compendium of at least 10 practices and methods which youth workers may use for helping youth prepare for the employability market.
3. To establish new synergies between the partner promoters of this project and at least 3 other organizations, within at least 5 months after the training course;
4. Increasing the quality of youth workers work and activities in favor of students, trainees and volunteers, gaining new skills and methods in helping them to prepare for the employability market.
5. A broader understanding of practices, policies and systems in non-formal education and training in order to gain high-quality learning outcomes for the youth workers.
Education is one of the most important aspects for the improvement of lives of young people around Europe, (stated as such in several EU policy documents) as education prepare them for the employability market. According to EUROSTAT, in February 2014, 5.392 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU-28. Youth unemployment rates are generally much higher than unemployment rates for all ages(http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics), so this project wants to address one major aspects of this problem, discussing how innovative, non-formal methods used in youth work can contribute to increasing competences and employability skills of young people in Europe.
Youth workers from: Slovakia, UK, Romania, Greece, Poland.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY AND METHODOLOGY
The main activity is a training course organized with the purpose of preparing youth workers to become or to better prepare in the area of career advising and youth employability. As we showed above, the biggest unemployed category is made by youth. We find vital to straighten the career services for youth.
During the training, the facilitator will use a non-formal method of teaching based on: aquarium, peer work and team tasks, demonstration, presentations, lectures, orientation meeting, caffees, group discussions and bilateral discussions, case study, fieldworks, group presentations, workshop, individual work, project development techniques (brainstorming, problem analysis techniques, W-H questions, activity and strength analysis).
RESULTS:
The results of the project are divided into two categories:
- tangible results of the project: promotional materials, power-point presentations, presentation folders, course support materials, brochures.
- intangible results: experience and learning such as language skills development, openness to other cultures, specific competencies on career advice and youth employability, group dynamics, to live and work in groups, entrepreneurship and creativity, professional development
Delivering the training course, 8 days, 6 hours per day, using non-formal and informal methods.