TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Tiziano Tomassini
The project aimed to empower young people from EU and EECA to get engaged in decision-making processes both in local and European level.
Training course was pursuing the following objectives:
• To introduce participants the concept of democracy and share best practices on democratic youth participation,
• To develop critical thinking skills among participants and make them more conscious about their rights and responsibilities,
• To increase participants’ awareness of social movements and introduce the methods of non-violent actions,
• To enable participants with practical tools to work on strategies in creation of non-violent actions,
• To develop a network of young civil society activists from EU and EECA and foster their engagement in follow-up projects related to the topic.
The project lasted 8 days and gathered youth workers and youth leaders from 13 partner organizations coming from Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. In total, we had 28 participants meaning that each partner organization sent 2 participants.
The methods of non-formal education were applied during the whole project. We discussed the concept of democracy starting from theoretical aspect and then going deeper into current country realities. Then we focused on civil society role in strengthening democracies by introducing social movements and non-violent actions as a tool to influence political agenda. The participants were involved in team-building activities, simulation games, role-playing games, forum theatre, group work and group discussions, games on strategic thinking, study visit and self-reflection activities.
All participants of the training course gained comprehensive knowledge on theoretical aspects of democracy and principles of democracy, got engaged in simulation game on decision-making process demonstrating the inequality within societies as well as reflecting on how history affects the current political regimes in their countries. Most importantly, participants had a chance to practically show the cases of civic disobediences through using the principles of non-violence for social transformation. Eventually, participants used their theoretical knowledge in practice by building up strategies for non-violent actions and using SWOT analysis. Meanwhile, the importance of networking, advocacy and communication was introduced to participants, having complementary role in improving participants' strategic thinking.
The project was obviously successful, taking into consideration the positive feedback from evaluation questionnaires.
Here is the article published by one of the promoter organizations of the project, Society Initiatives Institute:
http://sii.org.ua/en/crazy-for-democracy-aftermath/
Full-time Trainer. I worked for 6 days as a full-time trainer on the training course.