TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Marie Svobodová
The aims of the project were the following:
1. To raise the quality of youth work carried out by the partner organizations by improving the professional skills of the people who are becoming new youth leaders.
2. To raise the capacity of the organization to deal with the concrete needs of the young people they work with by discussing these needs with the participants and finding solutions to them.
3. To improve the knowledge of the participants in the field of youth work, to improve their leadership skills and to motivate them to take an active part as leaders in their organizations.
4. To organize activities for young people in the local area (Říčany, Czech Republic) and this way raise awareness about Erasmus+ and youth work in the local community.
5. To organize at least 3 follow-up activities per country in order to make an impact on the young people the organization is working with.
6. To strengthen cooperation between youth organizations by creating new contacts between the young members of the organizations, who have the potential to develop international activities/projects together.
The participants of the activity were young people between 18 and 23 years of age, who just got involved in the partner NGOs and need to gain the relevant skills and experience in order to become youth leaders.
The participants were from the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Greece.
My colleague facilitator was from Spain.
Here is a list of the training methods that were used:
- debates and discussions (about current issues the youth are facing, etc.)
- simulation exercises
- reflection sessions
- presentations (to raise the self-confidence of the participants)
- group work
- games
- group work
- learning by doing - The participants (in international teams) prepared their own educational activities for young people and they tried them out with the rest of the group.
The project was a very successful one and had an impact on the knowledge, skills and values of the involved participants. The participants learned:
- what is non-formal learning
- what are the methods of non-formal learning and how to use them
- how to organize an educational activity from energizer to debriefing
- how to work with the dynamics of a group (getting to know each other, feedback sessions, reflection, conflict management, etc.)
- how to address various topics with the young people, such as intercultural learning, learning in nature, creativity, logical skills, etc.
- what is Erasmus+ and how to plan a project
The participants planned concrete ways in which they are going to use their experience from the training in their personal as well as professional lifes. Each national team planned 3 concrete follow-up activities.
Together with my colleague, I was the facilitator of the training course. Moreover, I was the project manager - I wrote the project application form, planned the schedule and methodology and carried out the dissemination and evaluation of the project.