TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Diana Kovačić
Training course was designed for youth to raise awareness about the ESC programme and inspire participants to apply for solidarity projects tackling environmental issues. Also,
to deepen young people’s understanding about the concept of solidarity and about its connection to ecological issues, strengthening the European ESC community. Trough various interactive methods, participants ideas were supported up to project development, they were provided with basic project management skills and offered resources supporting quality project implementation and green project practices. In the end they were supported with the ESC application procedure.
The team was composed of 2 international trainers (Hungary and Croatia) and 2 representatives of NA'a (German and Polish) - JUGEND für Europa and FRSEi. The core group consisted of 16 participants, mostly young, but also youth leaders and youth workers coming from 9 different EU Countries (Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Spain, Romania, Netherlands, Belgium), with majority of women (11 out of 16).
The training was planned, developed and implemented as an online event based on interactive methods (energisers, small group work in breakout rooms, Q&A sessions, guest speakers…), minimising input in favour of interactivity. The team followed guidelines in order to ease participation in the online setting - screen time was limited to a maximum of 4 hours per day (realised either as a session of 3 hours with a short coffee break, or as 2 sessions of 2 hours with a longer lunch break); frontal inputs were kept as short as possible and always integrated with Q&A; smaller working groups were preferred rather than working in plenary when possible in order to facilitate the exchange among participants; relevant key note speakers were invited to present to inspire participants with examples of good practices and lessons learnt in practice. Fewer online tools and apps were selected in order to facilitate the process and not to distract (Padlet, Mentimeter, Jamboard). Zoom was the main digital communication tool. Jamboard was used as the collaboration whiteboard. Activities involving writing / visual materials were implemented in the platform.
Padlet, as the basic digital tool was used for collecting all outcomes, materials, links and resources in one place to use during training and later on for future reference and for interaction among participants (personal introductions, sharing contact details, possibility of commenting). Mentimeter was used for collecting info about and feedback from participants in certain introductory sessions.
According to the evaluation forms all participants agreed that the training was either very successful or successful in reaching all objectives. They especially appreciated these aspects: raising awareness about the ESC programme, inspiration to apply for Solidarity Projects, support with the application process and the useful resources they got. 70% are planning to apply for a Solidarity Project within ESC programme, 20% will probably apply, 10% will maybe apply.
Co-design and co-facilitation in the 2 international trainers duo.