TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Domagoj Morić
The aim of the activity was to offer an insight to some of the best communication practices from various youth projects and explore how the innovation can support the creation of added value in new and existing communication practices and activities in youth field.
The specific objectives are:
● To identify, collect and present the most innovative communication practices examples to inspire interested public beyond the participants of this seminar;
● To explore success factors and key elements of successful and innovative communications of project results in regards to the key target audiences;
● To create space for exchange of communication practices and tools that participants of the seminar use in their work;
● To support learning and development of communication activities of participant’s individual projects or activities;
● To explore the latest communication trends and actions;
● To encourage networking, new partnerships and cooperation among participants.
The activity gathered 23 stakeholders (youth organisations, youth centres, youth councils, youth clubs and other youth related NGOs) from the Erasmus+ Programme Countries who have been developing and implementing communication strategies and practices in different project and NGO contexts. The participants should have:
● Background and competences in various communication practices, dissemination and exploitation of project results in the frame of Erasmus+: Youth in Action programme;
● Interest in exploring the topic of innovating communication practices and strategies in the area of visibility, dissemination and exploitation of results in the frame of the Erasmus+: Youth in Action programme;
● Motivation to form networks and establish new partnerships for cooperation in the frame of this thematic area, in particular in the frame of Erasmus+ Programme.
Participants were communication experts, persons responsible for public relations in organization and project managers. The group was quite heterogeneous in the level of their expertise, work they are responsible for and knowledge of Erasmus+ programme and the aims.
Participants came from 11 different countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, France and Croatia. Observer from NA came from United Kingdom.
The main methodology approach was to open a secure and motivating place to share and exchange knowledge and experience (seminar, world caffe, plenary disscusions, drama exercises, practical work on developing communication strategies). To further motivate the experienced participants and delivery some top end education we included some outside experts (lecture and workshop, study visit, round table) . The last day we prepared a practical exercise (video production) aimed both for participants to further share and exchange and to create quality on line dissemination products for other beneficiaries.
After this activity, participants:
• received an insight to some of the best communication practices from various youth projects;
• know what innovation in communication is and can name different ways of thinking and creation of idea;
• explored how the innovation can support the creation of added value in new and existing communication practices and activities in youth field;
• explored success factors and key elements of successful and innovative communication;
• networked and created new partnerships.
Seminar was quite a success. In anonymous online questionnaire participants said that they learned new methods and tools – either how they can communicate ore how to structure their communication. Most of them mentioned they understand better creativity and that they should be more creative and innovative. They better understand target groups, understand that they need to be speaking the language of young people. Also, they created new partnerships. Some said that the greatest benefit was the possibility of networking. Others valued the importance of sharing different practices of organisations, where they learned a lot.
I was one of the two trainers who implemented the activity. My responsibilities included:
• design of the program,
• delivery of the sessions,
• writing final trainer report.