TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Emre Hüseyin Yiğit
In today's world as we have been considering the youngsters between nations are not be aware of
other cultures by understanding them and adapting into society widely. As this lack of cultural
understanding approach among youth workers gap have been reducing the quality of youth works
collaboration within the Partnership Countries as well as due of exact conflicts between Ukraine-
Russia, Russia-Georgia, Armenia-Turkey. That discrimination based on their background of nations,
history, prejudices, and stereotypes that youth workers faced provokes a huge conflict between youth
workers and embarrass quality of youth projects and sustainable strong partnership or even projects
that would have been already implemented to make the results better.
Facing the objectives of the Erasmus+ program, the project aims not only at improving among youth
workers key competences (communication in foreign languages, intercultural understanding,
awareness, emotional intelligence, social and civic competencies) but also at equipping them with
educational tools and enriching their knowledge in order for them to become multipliers and promoters of youth activism in an open and diverse society.
The project also aims to make a conflict transformation into multicultural youth between the conflict countries such as Ukraine-Russia, Russia-Georgia, Armenia-Turkey, to make one step forward to
peace, mutual understanding, and respect by providing active citizenship, intercultural dialogue,
social inclusion, solidarity. The TC "Sensing Culture as a Bridge in Youth Work" increased
learning, mobility opportunities for young people, those active in youth organizations, and youth
leaders within local regional and international levels. The other aim was to make a step forward on
recognition of non-formal and informal learning, transparency and recognition of tools and the
dissemination of good practices, an opportunity for promoting cooperation between program and partner
countries.
The project aims were at producing high-quality learning outcomes for participants as well as at reinforcing the capacities and international scope of the participating organizations. The project was also
addressed to young people with fewer opportunities.
The project also aims were to:
- break barriers between young people through intercultural learning using non-formal methods and
tools of education,
- share the best traditions and costumes and traditional accessories that are the real nation
treasures,
- find out stereotypes that are common in project partner countries (or about these countries and
nations living there) and by finding stereotype causes make common understanding,
- find solutions for common particular problems in the communication and understanding of youth
and society while sharing the experience and traditions,
- promote the culture of peace among the participants,
- create an expanded free space for participants to share their experience and have social contact
and intercultural dialogue with each other,
- develop conceptual and practical means of translating intercultural dialogue into the realities of
youth work,
- make a positive impact of traditions on young people's daily life, creativity, and development.
The training course was addressed to people who:
- ages 20-45
- are involved in youth work as representatives of NGOs, teachers, volunteers, trainers, facilitators,
project managers
The project was designed and developed for capacity building of the youth profession's that's why the training needed youth professionals to involve implementation.
- were able to communicate in English
- are interested in the topic of anti-discrimination
- were not familiar with Open Space Technology as well as the Forum Theatre method
- express need for enriching knowledge on new non-formal education tools
- express need for networking and sharing experiences with other youth workers
- were ready to take part in the whole seminar
- had organizational support for further youth activities
Participants also were able to get support of their working organization to lead project activities
for implementation and follow-up phase.
TC "Sensing Culture as a Bridge in Youth Work" was a project which gathers 35 youth workers ages
20-45 from 11 different countries(the United Kingdom, North of Macedonia, Georgia, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Russian Federation, Spain, Ukraine, Armenia, and Turkey) in Tbilisi, Georgia in order to provide them with innovative tools and methods as well as competencies and skills related to combating stereotypes and prejudices and educating youth on antidiscrimination.
Forum Theatre(FT)
A play or scene, usually indicating some kind of oppression, is shown twice. During the replay, any
member of the audience (‘spect-actors) is allowed to shout ‘Stop!’, step forward and take the place of
one of the oppressed characters, showing how they could change the situation to enable a different
outcome. Several alternatives may be explored by different spect-actors. The other actors remain in
character, improvising their responses. A facilitator (Joker) is necessary to enable communication
between the players and the audience.
The strategy breaks through the barrier between performers and audience, putting them on an equal
footing. It enables participants to try out courses of action which could be applicable to their everyday
lives.
Open Space Technology(OST)
Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to
create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening
space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.
In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization, or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to
create?
The training course was based on non – formal educational methods with a special focus on education on anti-discrimination through intercultural learning. Experienced trainers will facilitate the learning
process of participants and provide space for learning theories to put theories into practice, facilitate
research, conduct learning process, and support to identify learning outcomes. The program was
built-up according to the needs and expectations of partner organizations and the main organizational
aim was to use the methods, tools, techniques, strategy at home and foster the outcomes at the European level. Both Open Space Technology and Forum Theatre were useful in youth education on antidiscrimination, they were chosen to give the youth workers to widen their overview, creativity, key
competences give a chance to improve their skills as facilitators space to act and was involved in all
processes.
-Thanks to the training course, participants gained to;
- get familiar with the mechanism of stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination
- verify and reflect on their own stereotypes and prejudices in order to overcome them
- understand better their role as youth workers in combating stereotypes among young people in local
communities
- enrich knowledge about Open Space Technology as well as a Forum Theatre method as useful and
innovative ways of educating youth
- create, together with participants new activities using OST and FT for further dissemination
- have knowledge about Erasmus+ funds more
- extend their capacity with broadening their working area with partner organizations
Participants improved their awareness and knowledge on the mechanism of discrimination, they
understand the problem and its consequence better, they became more emphatic, they learned
how to see the situation of young people from different perspectives and how to work with the topic in the future
The training course made participants be better prepared in using non-formal education methods in combating stereotypes, explain their causes, as well as they, was acquainted with intercultural learning, and earn some level of intercultural competence. They improved or got new key competences for Life Long Learning as well as improve speaking foreign
languages. Youth workers who attended the training were also better informed about the opportunities of
the Erasmus+ program. The TC also brought future cooperation among participants.
Youth workers and youth were encouraged to realize initiatives they brainstormed on during the training course in Tbilisi Georgia and workshops realized later on. We stayed in touch with participants of the TC online and we motivated them and supported them to become a team as informal youth groups taking up initiatives in their towns within Erasmus Plus Programme.
We have organized one conference to make an impact on the Erasmus+ funds and cultural awarenes as well as OST and FT methods that were useful for the projects which have been implemeting local projects
A separate page was created on social platforms for the project was created together with the deliverable. The pages were presented the activities carried out during the project as well as links to pictures and the e-book, announce events and collecting all project results. The pages, blocks are available in English, some sections were in all partner languages. The first version of it was launched by July 2019 and was extended throughout the project. Promotional material was designed such as notebook, pens, flash-disk, one of gift,t-shirt which all involves project logo, Erasmus+ logo, UK National Agency logo, stakeholders and partners logo, in all the languages involved in the project and in English was designed and developed, aimed at presenting briefly the project, its partners, activities and expected outcomes.
Moreover, there is called " how to use OST and FT on discrimination" after the project,
We built this manual by all partners using project reports and project outcomes. We published this at Salto-Youth and Public Education Center.
I have joined the training as a full-time senior trainer on non-formal education.
I took care of all the process of learning during the training as preparation, implementation and
evaluate the steps of the training project, ensuring participants:
• learning in non-formal education and youth work in the framework of the Erasmus+ (experience at
national and international level).
• acquire good knowledge of Non-Formal Education methodology, pedagogy, and methods associated with this educational approach.
• know well the Erasmus+ programme, the National Agencies and are familiar with its mission and
priorities.
• knowledge of national and European social and youth policies, related methods such as Open Space Technology and Forum Threatre
• have a good understanding of intercultural learning
• have language skills and be able to give training in other languages in addition to the mother
tongue.
• have excellent communication skills.
As a trainer, I have tried to ensure the measure of project achievement by doing the:
• Constitution of supervision team (composed by organizers and youth workers trainers)
• Constitution of project committee (composed by all organization)
• Reports and examination of indicator's realization
• Level of implementation of the project and the actions
• Documents of follow up
• Contacts with local & international teams and by the visual platform.
I have also delivered workshops on;
-Introduction to the Holistic Competence Approach and Experimental Learning Cycle with the SMART Method.
-Introduction on YouthPass and Key Competence Model
-Informing on Non-Formal Educational Methods on Session Planning
-Leading workshop on " Step Forward" understanding discrimination
-Presenting and giving input on the concept of Open Space Technology and Forum Theatre
-Sharing good practice examples of building sessions using OST and FT
-Sharing tips and quality on Facilitation of the OST and FT
-Sharing information on Erasmus+ and its structure.