TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Serhan Karatas
Aims:
• To integrate the participants from 8 different countries
• To stimulate a learning process on participation, youth policy, empowerment, social work.
• To develop new quality projects on local empowerment and social change.
• To initiate partnerships between the organisations by creating the common space for joint work.
There were 20 participants from 8 different countries (Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Belgium, Hungary). The participants were youth workers or young volunteers that are active in the local level.
I was the main trainer and learning facilitator of the seminar. The representatives of different local and national non-governmental organisations and national /regional governmental officials also shared their experience and knowledge during the panel sessions organised.
The seminar was fully based on non-formal education methods. All the exercises used were experiential and participatory in order to facilitate group learning.
On the 1st day a safe space was created by group building exercises. By the 2nd day the idea main topics of the seminar (participation, empowerment, decision making, youth policy, social change) were discussed using drama, mim, dance, drawing and verbal methods. These discussions were followed by introduction of R.Hart's "Ladder of Participation" and A.Fletcher's "Cycle of Engagement". The participants analyzed the situation in their countries and come up with ideas.
On 3rd day, a panel discussion with the participation of national governmental and regional governmental experts was held on youth policy. After this panel youth policies of different countries were analysed in working groups and recommendation paper was prepared.
On 4th day, participants visited different local youth initiatives and youth centres in the region. They found the opportunity to understand different realities, compare their own and commend on. Panel discussion with national youth field experts stimulated the learning process on participation and empowerment.
The last day was focused on coming up with new projects and evaluation of the seminar.
The participants prepared a letter to Portuguese and European authorities on youth about youth participation and youth policy.
The analysis of youth policies for each country of the participants were prepared. These analysis were published at http://www.fajdp.pt/
3 projects were prepared for application on September 2008 YiA deadline as follow-up actions.
I was the content manager of the seminar. I was the main and only trainer of the event.
My responsibilities were;
• Developing and designing the methods, programme and modules of the training.
• Deciding on the non-formal educational approaches for the implementation of the seminar.
• Implementing all seminar program and facilitating the learning process.