"The power of non-formal education" -edition for the Western Balkans

The training course "The power of non-formal education" provides the participants with a possibility to undergo a full experiential learning process, acknowledging that learning happens in various ways (through doing, feeling, reflecting, transferring etc.). The participants are encouraged to build their own learning processes, supported by a fine-tuned pedagogical programme, which is conducted by three experienced trainers. The training course has been held in various European countries since 2009. This edition will give a possibility for participants from the Western Balkan region to experience the activity in their regional context together with six additinal participants from Belgium French speaking community. (Please note that this particular call and application procedure targets only the interested applicants from the Western Balkans.) Objectives: * To stimulate the participants to feel and reflect on the power of non-formal education by experimenting different kinds of non-formal educational methods * To approach the role and perception of non-formal education in participants' countries * To fight against the growing consumerist approaches towards young people in the field of non-formal education * To explore meanings, roles and complementarity of different educational approaches and methods (formal, non-formal, informal) * To reconsider daily youth work practices * To understand how non-formal education can be powerful to develop initiatives, entrepreneurship and employability of young people The training course is divided to three phases: 1/ PRE-IMMERSION PHASE (5 WEEKS BEFORE THE TC): Participants receive weekly (electronic) newsletters in order to start the training process before the residential training course. The newsletters will: * Introduce some key elements and concepts (formal, non-formal, informal education...) * Make participants reflect about their daily practices * Discover through short presentations the team members and participants A Facebook group will be created as an additional tool. 2/ THE TRAINING COURSE (4 DAYS AND A HALF): Below are the main steps of the training process: * Setting a common ground of non-formal education (terminology, vision). * Feeling the power of non-formal educational methods (doing activities for the fun of learning something) * Understanding precisely how a youth worker can work with non-formal educational methods (through analysing the methods). * Approaching the Erasmus+: Youth in Action Programme as a tool box to express the power of non-formal education (presenting good practice examples). * Making the participants' work in the non-formal educational sector more powerful: discovering what to do next? Transversal elements: * Being aware of the learning potential of non-formal educational projects (having this training course as an example) * Focusing on the learning process of participants (from their learning’s objectives to a daily self-evaluation of their learning’s outcomes) 3/ THE CONSOLIDATION PHASE (till end of February): * At the end of the training course, participants write an action plan to see concretely how they plan to transfer their learning in their daily practices * Trainers’ team is fully available for participants for mentoring, individual support and consultation of participants, mainly in the implementation of their action plan The training period and the consolidation phase also serves as the period of implementation of the Youthpass process. Profile of participants: * Over 18 * Able to work actively in English * Working directly with young people * The organizers will take the gender balance into consideration during the selection