TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Marta Skorczynska
Main aim of this project was to strengthen public and interpersonal communication skills of the professionals working in the field of youth and education, boosting their abilities to deliver powerful messages that would lead to action with positive impact on solving pressing social issues, as well as to enhance their voice handling and public speaking abilities in order to deliver learning programs with increased clarity and efficiency.
It addressed the need of educators and youth workers to enhance their facilitation skills in work with their target groups, strengthening the impact and scope of their activities. That was reached through a training on
*how to use their voice as an instrument of communication in a healthier and more efficient way, without damaging it and being hoarse;
*how to handle their voice when communicating messages, so the intonation and projection would help the message to reach the listeners, to deliver clear instructions or to pass the knowledge, or to create various atmospheres that support learning depending on the aim that should be reached.
Another objective was to empower the participating youth workers in their civic efforts and participation. That was reached by combining the voice training with efforts to solve actual social issues in the participants’ communities, including a module of creative writing and delivering a speech on an important social issue to the group.
This activity involved youth workers from the following countries: Austria, Latvia, Romania, Hungary, Italy, France, Slovenia, Spain, Poland, Portugal and Czech Republic.
The learning approach was based on the principles and values of non-formal and experiential learning. Participants would learn using the resources and support of the group and learn by doing. Through the training course participants learnt different breathing and voice production and projection techniques that would enable them to master their voice better. Movement exercises, reflective writing exercises, storytelling exercises, visual facilitation and interactive expert inputs about related theoretic concepts and frameworks were used as supportive methods.
Program of the proposed training course includes five main thematic blocks:
- exploring natural voice
- creative and educational uses of voice and sound
- public speaking
- storytelling that empowers
- developing and testing new voice workshop concepts and learning methods.
Partners were expected to learn and develop innovative approaches and methods, how to organize learning, as well as encourage various social initiatives. Participants of the training course have increased their abilities to use their voice more efficiently and creatively, and have learnt various voice and sound based learning methods, that are suitable for work with young people and development of young people’s creative abilities, confidence, communication skills and self-awareness. Those skills and knowledge were collected during the „idea lab” module in the training and participants explored how to transfer it into activities they could deliver to others and enlarge the impact of the project. Later on, follow-up activities were organized in their local communities and inside the organizations.
Now the partners are able to offer new and unique learning opportunities, and their staff have learnt to communicate in an attractive and clear way the values, mission, and daily work achievements of their organizations. Communicate with individuals, as well as with media, decision makers, or donors. This increases the overall capacity and attractiveness of the involved organizations, who are working to solve educational and social issues in times of fake news and information chaos.
I was supporting the trainers' team with embodied team building session, introducing Nonviolent Communication as an approach for group building, supporting individual and group reflection and evaluation.