TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Nebojsa Nick Djeric
Training Course Action 3.1 has implemented in period from 13 - 21 April 2013 in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, with participants from European program countries and neighboring partner countries from Southeastern Europe.
The Training Course “Wilderness ventures – A Training on Outdoor Education in European Youth Work” was aimed to train youth leaders and youth workers to include the target group of youth at risk (youth with defiant behavior, anger, acting out, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and failing in school) in order to let them experience and to learn about healthy role models, outdoor and survival skills.
The Objectives were:
- to give participants experience about experiential learning and outdoor education tools
- to promote non formal education and informal learning as a method in outdoor educational activities
- to discover and develop participants leaderships skills and social and intercultural competences
- to challenge participants with new outdoor educational, theoretical and practical concepts
- to support participants to run outdoor activities in their local communities
- to promote ‘Youth in Action’ Programme possibilities through future outdoor education youth projects
This project with the title “Wilderness ventures – A Training on Outdoor Education in European Youth Work” was an intensive seven days lasting training course.
Target group on this project were youth leaders, youth workers, facilitators, trainers and multipliers that are working with young people with fewer opportunities - youth at risk (youth with defiant behavior, anger, acting out, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and failing in school).
Project promoted non formal education and Outdoor Education activities among young people using Youth in Action Programme possibilities.
Participants from Germany, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Italy, Albania and Macedonia took part in the Training Course.
The working language of the Training Course was English.
The working methods used on this training course were non-formal education and informal way of learning. This included: games, energizers, ice-breakers, team building exercises, individual and group outdoor educational activities, work on practical examples in a small groups, simulations, thematic workshops, discussions, debates, presentations...
The team of 2 experienced Salto youth trainers followed approved program activities. We adopted all our activities to the participants and their level of knowledge and experiences. Some changes in the program activities were due to the active participation of the participants who proposed games, energizers and short educative sessions related to the topic of the daily program.
The team supported completely the initiatives of the participants and were open to any propositions regarding the topic of the project.
The proposed activities were supervised and evaluated by the trainers team in order to develop concretely outdoor education skills of the participants.
For this Training Course participants were chosen to be experienced and ready to reflect upon outdoor tools as a method to transfer that towards their future youth projects and daily youth work.
The idea of this project was to empower participants to understand how to use different theoretical concepts, which give a support to run outdoor activities, to learn how to discover and develop their leadership skills and finally to develop their knowledge to use methods to empower young people within the described inclusion context.
In a further perspective the participants of the Training Course will play an essential role in mentoring and guiding youth looking for healthier and peaceful trails through physically and demanding challenges and to broach the issues among their target group, their peers and other young people.
The expected outcomes of the training course are confident and competent youth leaders, youth workers, facilitators, trainers and multipliers.
During training course, participants developed new skills to design and implement future outdoor education programs empowering other young people in their environment with the support of their organizations and local communities.
In this training course I worked as a trainer with my colleague Margaux Richet, Salto youth trainer http://trainers.salto-youth.net/MargauxRichet/. In total two trainers from Serbia and Germany delivered program activities using an interactive and participative approach.
Training course “Wilderness ventures – A Training on Outdoor Education in European Youth Work” supported by European Commission and Youth in Action Programme http://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htm and organized by NGO Korito Drine from Bosnia and Herzegovina
koritodrine@yahoo.com