TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Vitalie Cirhana
The main aim of the training is to gather youth workers, youth-leaders, peer-to-peer educators, project managers, volunteers and other stakeholders working with young people who are interested in increasing their understanding of non-formal education techniques and increasing their competencies on how to plan, facilitate, and evaluate the non-formal learning process during their daily work with youth and during “Youth in Action” projects.To ensure the training has a real impact on participants, it will include a wide spectrum of methods and approaches.
Considering the different learning styles of people, we will make sure that the methods chosen provide a good balance of opportunities for different people and are as interactive/ involving as possible.
In May 2013 “MilleniuM” Training and Development Institute hosted the 9 day training course on designing and facilitating non-formal learning activities entitled "Do it Non-formal!". There participate 24 participants from 6 organizations representing Program countries (Latvia, Italy, Romania, Estonia, Turkey) and 6 organizations representing Partner countries from Eastern Partnership countries (Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus).
he training was designed to tackle the needs of the participants and their organizations to increase their competencies in facilitation of non-formal learning. Partners have expressed the need to build their competencies in order to approach this process more consciously and increase the quality of their work. From the moment of applying to becoming a partner in this project, organizations have been involved in preparation of this project and in their applications suggested several very good ideas that have been put into the programme. Regular communication between the partners, consultations, and involvement will remain as a crucial part of this project throughout all phases.
To ensure the training has a real impact on participants, it wasl included a wide spectrum of methods and approaches. Considering the different learning styles of people, we will make sure that the methods chosen provide a good balance of opportunities for different people and are as interactive/involving as possible. We will make participants aware that learning can take place both in non-formal as well as informal settings. Youthpass will be introduced to support the participants to structure their learning process. Also intercultural learning will be a crucial part of this project.
An important part was also sharing of experiences and learning from each other. Untraditionally, the participants will be both participants as well as facilitators of the learning process at different points. As part of programme, new and innovative methods/tools will be worked out, which will be a valuable contribution to youth work, which is often suffering from the same activities and methods.
Based on experiential learning principles, emphasis will be put on reflection and evaluations to ensure that participants have increased their competencies and will later be able to apply the experiences gained during the project and share them with wider communities in their home countries.
All the participants appreciate importance of NFE methods in working with young people and develop their skills in facilitation of session for youth. Almost all participants noted what their found the training useful for their own personal development and one of them even expressed the desire to become a trainer in the future.
To work on teambuilding and create an environment where the trainers and participants are in the best possible mindset to learn from the trainers and other participants, to create a framework where participants will learn and share about their particular knowledge and experience, and be creative and innovative in developing solutions to the issues presented during the project. To explore together with participants topics as motivation, youth participation, facilitation of learning activities.