TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Myrto Siapardani
The aim of the study session is to strengthen the human rights-based approach to local
youth work in order to support young people in claiming, exercising, defending their
rights and encourage active participation in the community life, by empowering professionals
working in the field of youth.
The study session has the following objectives:
1. To support the development of competences of those providing youth support, for human
rights-based youth work programs and outreaching young people, particularly
those at risk of or experiencing marginalization or exclusion.
2. To ensure and strengthen cooperation between different actors who support access
of young people to rights, including on one hand youth workers and on the other hand
formal education representatives, social care system representatives, crime prevention
institutions, etc.
3. To promote youth work, especially in the structures and institutions where it is not yet
presented (social work practices, formal education, child care institutions), as a tool to
increase the interest and involvement of different groups of young people to active citizenship
at local level.
4. To support participants in reflecting on existing and developing new youth work
practices, which will contribute to the improvement of the access to rights of young
people, and by this supporting the implementation of Council of Europe recommendations
at local level (particularly the Recommendations on youth work and young
people’s access to rights)
30 people matched in couples from 12 European countries (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukrain) took part in the Study Session "Youth Work Out! Together for the rights of all young people" that was designed to sensitize and especially train youth workers (presidents, board members, leaders, trainers, mentors, coaches, project managers and others) and professionals (people working in the municipality, social workers etc) from various European organizations/fields on how to strengthen the rights of young people and promote the rights based approach youth work.
Group work, Role playing, Storytelling, Simulation, Games, Questions & answers, Group discussion, Brainstorming, Presentations.
The Study Session had multiple benefits for the participants and they acquired very important competencies and knowledge, with which they can support their follow up activities at their communities. Also they have created the Quality Criteria for the implementation of rights based youth work.
I was one of the 5 trainers of the team and I facilitated the learning activities throughout the project.