Roadmap to NEETwork

Aims & objectives

Social disengagement dramatically affects young people’s well-being, with long-term impacts, as it decreases overall life satisfaction and increases the risk of social exclusion while declining optimism about the future.

Our project answers the societal challenge of high rates of NEET youngsters due to the few attractive opportunities for their development, lack of easily accessible information about the opportunities, and low competences of youth workers in promoting such development opportunities, combined with the negative perception of the ‘alternative’ inclusion/development programs.

Objectives:

1. Improving the competences of 30 youth workers’ indeveloping efficient programs and empowermentstrategies by using E+ and ESC as tools for theinclusion/integration of NEET youth.

2. Promoting NEETs inclusion and youth opportunitiesamong local youngsters by learning how to write projectapplications.

3. Enhancing the capacity of 10 NGOs to empower youth inbecoming active citizens in their local communities bydeveloping common international projects.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The project gathered 34 participants, youth workers from Romania, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, Netherlands and Finland - Youth workers (long-term volunteers, social workers, educators, social pedagogues, community development facilitators, counselors, trainers, facilitators, and other related staff implementing non-formal activities), who are actively involved in promoting NEETs inclusion and youth opportunities;

Training methods used & main activities

Our daily program was divided in 4 - 1:30 hours sessions, 1 hours reflection/evaluation and inter-cultural evenings. In terms of NFE methods (indoor-outdoor), we have used in a holistic approach:
- Energisers before each session;
- Plenary inputs by trainers/experts;
- Guest speakers/study visits - opportunity to listen and observe how ‘others do it’;
- Presentations of participants;
- Digital content creation sessions (videos, posters, e-guide);
- Topic-related board games;
- Team-building, ice-breaking activities;
- One-to-one, group work based on discussion, debates, brainstorming, sharing ideas;
- Learning by doing - especially when testing the tools and undertaking practical exercises;
- Role-play, world-café, forum theater;
- Study cases, problem solving scenarios;
- Cultural awareness activities;
- Open spaces sessions where participants choose their topics of interests;
- Thematic board games;
- Daily reflection/evaluations of the learning process.

Outcomes of the activity

Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/roadmaptoneetwork

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was the trainer.

I worked on this training for 9 days as a full time trainer.