Youth Work in Difficult Times (in German and Russian language)

Aims & objectives

The Russian war against Ukraine also has an impact on international youth work. Ukraine is at war, millions of people have had to flee. Meetings with Russian partners are currently not possible. The climate crisis, pandemic and war are the current challenges of our time, which young people in particular are suffering from.
Aims of the seminar:
- stay in touch with international youth work professionals
- bring together various youth workers and activists from different countries impacted/displaced by the war
- finding methods with which we can work with young people in challenging times
- looking at what it means to do contemporary peace education
- the discussions & experiences will be published in a brochure that will also be available to other professionals, institutions and organisations.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

- youth workers and activists from Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus with different nationalities (incl. Russians if they are currently residing outside Russia)

Training methods used & main activities

- open space
- study visit
- arts education (riso printing)
- creative writing and poetry/rap
- brainwriting
- world café

Outcomes of the activity

- partnerships could be maintained and built upon, 3 youth/youth worker projects between Germany and Kyrgyzstan were implemented
- new methods and tools were documented and used in various activities
- publication still in progress
- feedback for the activity was positive

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

- designing and implementing the training and learning process in a team of trainers
- organizing study visits
- facilitating the training
- communication with all stakeholders
- reporting of the training

I worked on this training for 8 days as a full time trainer.

Testimonial of the reference person

Manina Ott designed the seminar for experts and practitioners in international youth work from eight nations, created and implemented the programme, was responsible for the co-teamers and produced a detailed final report. The feedback from the participants was consistently positive and highly favourable. I can emphatically recommend Manina Ott for leading such training programmes.