TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Marius POP
Specialised training on social inclusion among people from 4 countres: Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland. During 10 days in a special location (an isolated chalet in the middle of the mountains) through role playning, experimental playing, games, music we experimented tools for social inclusion amoung 40 participants. After few days the group became a team and after the training the participants were linked by invisible wires untill now.
Since this was the first big international event organized by YMCA Romania through Youth in Action Programme, my role as head trainer was to create the team (6 person + 3 group leaders)to coordonate it, to interfere when one of the team members was not correct, to make the changes and adjustments of the programme acording with participants profile and orher non predicted factors.
The main target group was composed of members of YMCA organizations, thus the focus was on social inclusion tools for YMCAs from Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Latvia.
Our main method was experiential learning. The participants were guided, during a variate series of exercises, towards finding their own solutions and insights. The training was not based on identifying problems, as we already were aware of those, but on solutions and visual results. Therefor, during this 7-day experience were encouraged to learn, create, develop and bond by simply playing, acting and imagining.
The trianing has reached it's goal. After the end of the project, other exchange and training ideas was born, few of them have been put into practice. It was a begining for starting a network that is working even today.
I was one of the initiators of this project. My vision was to connect alike organizations and joining resources to grow and develop in a homogeneous way. As head trainer, I held the main lectures and guided the practical activities related to them. As initiator of this project I was involved in preparing the project as well, having logistical responsibilities even though the event did not take place in my country.