TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Ferah Şenaydın
Lots of countries in Europe are suffering from a high rate of youth unemployment. This leads -
combined with the freedom of settlement guaranteed by the EU - to lots of well-educated young
people searching a job in another country than their home. After some time lots of these young
people come back frustrated to their home country because they cannot find a job or they cannot
tackle the different cultural attitudes towards work and getting dismissed.
Aim of the project :
For a successful job application in a European country the students need to have knowledge about
specific differences e.g. in the application process, the documents required (application, CV), the
procedures of a job interview or assessment centres or the structure of the respective labour market.
Objectives :
• applying for a job in a foreign country;
• being successful in a job interview in a foreign country;
• being aware of differences in labor law between the countries;
• being able to tackle with different cultural attitudes towards work • gaining an entrepreneurial view
on human resources management
This international training project hosted total 32 participants from 8 countries including Finland, Italy, Slovenia, UK, Germany, Romania, Macedonia, and Turkey
Non-formal pedagogy was used to help participants to
reflect on their experiences. The training involved several non-formal activities, including debates, simulation games, buzz group discussions, round tables, running dictation, poster presentations, living library, World Cafe activity, and many energizers and icebreakers .
Through the project, participants gained skills, insights and experiences which they would otherwise
not be able to obtain. At the beginning of the project, the participants thought about a virtual
business which looked for new employees from an entrepreneurial perspective. This included a
business name, a business presentation and possible job advertisements. Then they had to focus
on themselves as a possible employee and their "market value" for the virtual companies which could
hire them.
It was expected that the impact of our project on participants in the target group would be primarily to
increase their knowledge to emploment in Europe . Participants were expected to increase their
knowledge and skills about employment and entrepreneurship and to have the knowledge and skills they can use in their future life in entrepreneurship. Particularly as a result of our project activities,the participants had increased motivation in entrepreneurship and to complete the
project process with the knowledge and skills to take steps to start a business.
The results :
- drafts for the individual job application in another language and another country;
- handbooks for job interviews;
- presentations and handbooks about the labor law of the different countries;
- presentations of different countries' labour markets;
- presentations and handbooks about cul;tural attitudes towards work in the different countries;
- material for assessment center training;
- role plays (mock job interviews; engaging local employers where possible)
My role during the training was to provide space for participants to discuss and share their views, feeling and thoughts on the given subject, and help them to test their boundaries for skills developement. Reflection, self-reflection and feedback were an essential part of my role. In the end of each non-formal activity, I tried to give a theoretical frame so that all their discussions could have a solid, scientific ground. So my training was non-formal involving games, simulations, role-plays, debates, round tables etc. but also involved theory as reference point for participants to further explore later on.