TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Fabio Meazza
The project “V.D.O. Makers - Visibility Doers for Organisations” was born from the need of partner organisations to provide their youth workers with some useful and necessary skills and competences for promoting their activities and engaging more people, as well as tools to be able to transfer them to young people they are directly working with. The idea was born from the discussions of representatives of L’Ayalguina (Fabio Meazza) and RICDOG (Leonor Rothes), former EVS volunteers who met in an Erasmus+ project related to the topic, who share the passions for video making and the organization of those kinds of mobility experiences.
We (Fabio and Leonor) found ourselves noticing that youth workers and most of the organisations we work with, lack developed skills in promotion, outbound/inbound communication and video making, or in general, they do not know how to develop and practice them and, in consequence, are not able to reach youth target groups they would like to. We also noticed a common lack of transversal skills valued in professional and personal life such as communication, storytelling, creativity, adaptability etc... all related, as said, to promotion in general.
We decided to work together on the topic and to include other six organisations that we know that could need to work on developing this kind of competences of their members and, thus, improving the quality of youth work in their local communities by boosting their communicational skills and then being able to reach wider audiences. Sharing of all partners’ needs led us to joint research and the identification of a series of commonly required skills that the project aims to develop, to increase the quality work and initiatives done by participating youth workers, to boost the awareness of their own competences and to encourage them to develop themselves.
Within the aim of the project – to increase the quality of partner organisations’ communication, reaching wider audiences by developing youth workers’ competences in video making – the project set as objectives:
- To develop youth workers’ knowledge about media literacy;
- To boost youth workers’ and organisations’ effectiveness in communication and promotion of social initiatives;
- To acquire practical skills in all the stages of video production;
- To make the media production process sustainable, at the same time effective and affordable for non-profit organisations;
- To enhance teamwork and creativity skills under time pressure.
The group was composed of 24 youth workers from 7 different countries: Poland, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Greece, Georgia and Armenia.
Profile of the Participants we looked for:
- youth workers / teachers / trainers / volunteers, connected to the sending organisations or willing to become their members;
- at least 18 years old;
- with a communicative level of English to be able to learn in an intercultural environment;
- interested in the topic of video production in all its stages;
- motivated and able to take part in the whole project's phases: preparation, activity and dissemination, explained in the following pages;
- ready to use the acquired competencies after the activity in dissemination and follow-up activities.
In accordance with the objective of the Erasmus + program to increase the presence of youth with fewer opportunities in international mobility programs, we encouraged the selection of participants who comes from the disadvantaged social, economic, educational, cultural or geographic environment, including immigrants and refugees.
Selection procedure:
Candidates completed an application form to demonstrate both the skills they already have and their interest in participating in this course as part of their professional development process. In some cases, candidates have been contacted for an interview.
Partner organisations:
- POLAND, YoWo Poland
- SPAIN, Asociación Cultural L'Ayalguina
- ESTONIA, Progress Center
- ITALY, Vedogiovane
- GREECE, EKO Greece
- ARMENIA, Armavir Development Center
- GEORGIA, Research-Intellectual Club "Dialogue of Generations"
The program has been designed in a way for ensuring the achievement of the main aim of the project, i.e. to develop youth workers’ (who were beginners in video making) competences in video making. During the sessions, trainers introduced step-by-step video production in all its phases, starting from the basic rules of photography to the complete production of a social promotional video. To train participants in those methods and tools, trainers used non-formal education methodology to make them learn while experimenting on their own and try it out, which made them develop new competences in the most efficient and enjoyable way.
All the project activities were based on the use of non-formal methodologies that allowed the participants to acquire knowledge in a friendly and effective way. Participants took part in exercises, assignments and group debates related to the topic, having the opportunity and space to develop their own videos, coached by the trainers.
The flow of everyday reflections, scheduled every day in the evening through NFE methods, encouraged participants to share feelings of each day in small groups and to give feedback to organisers and trainers. Safe spaces have been created so that participants could share and exchange experiences and good practices that enhanced their more active participation in the course. Through the different activities, they have been involved for feeling protagonists and willing to participate actively in the activities, encouraging learning through experience, dialogue and exchange. The aim was to build knowledge among all the people and the generated group dynamics.
As an outcome of the project, during the activity, participants created different videos related to some SDGs that they choose. Those videos have been a preparation for the last assignments that we asked them to develop: social promotional videos produced both on the spot and after the project in order to promote the activities of local organisations. In fact, during the last days of the training, participants worked directly in contact with six Georgian associations, interviewing, connecting and recording videos for them. As the last outcome, participants were expected to come back to their own home countries and make videos for their sending organisations or for other social initiatives they may find in need of online promotion.
All the videos will be collected once produced on the Youtube channel: bit.ly/yeuropaproject
I have been a full-time trainer in a team composed of 3 total people, delivering sessions about topics such as image composition, shot types, storytelling, communication, universal language, frugal production, how to give proper feedback and social promotional video production. I have been responsible for providing the sessions, together with the supporting co-trainer, and I also took care of sessions on Erasmus+ and Youthpass, as well as in charge of supervising the reflection process of participants. The entire project and program activities have been designed by me.