Youth Work Hillgrimage

Travel days are 5th-11th December (arrival 4th, departure 12th)

The project is addressed to youth organisations who are interested to develop youth workers/leaders competences in outdoor learning and specifically the incorporation of hillwalking methodology.

The covid-19 pandemic has led more of us to get out into the outdoors. However, it has also highlighted how vital it is that we ensure that young people know how to access outdoors in a safe and sustainable way when they are in those forests, mountains, beaches, and waterways. Outdoor learning, outdoor education and outdoor youth work activity are all different genres of youth work practice which have taken distinct directions in their development over the years, but it is no longer simply good enough to do activity and learning in the outdoors, we must overhaul the way we think about outdoor learning and we must improve the way we teach young people the skills to be able to 'be' outdoors, as an accessible strategy to social and developmental benefits such as to improve their own coping, increase their emotional resilience and to reduce the need to be consumerist.

The pandemic has accelerated our desire to innovate new programmes of non-formal methodology that can rise to the afore-described challenge. We want to use this project to contribute towards building a renewed consensus for outdoor learning amongst the youth work community at the European level. The purpose of this project is to inspire youth workers and to transfer their new skills and learning to young people, and to grow routes of empowerment and engagement of young people.
 

To reach the above overall aims, we will address the following specific objectives:
OB1: Increase awareness of the importance of outdoor skills development in young people in communities of participating organisations.
OB2: Improve the quality of youth work by developing creative non-formal learning activity within an outdoor learning framework.
OB3: Develop competences of youth workers and improve their professional development journey.
OB4: Develop the capacity of youth work organisations to deliver sustainable, outdoor youth work and build a community of practice
OB5: Explore ways to embed wellbeing and self-care into programme delivery.
 

The project involves one mobility activity - a training course. Youth workers will climb and explore hills as an immersive experience whilst exploring outdoor methodology. The exploration (the hillgrimage) and the educational methods of the training course will allow youth workers to develop knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and skills on being outdoors allowing them to relate that to young people and to improve the quality of activities and mentorship they offer to their own youth target groups.