TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Hristescu Costin Adrian
“Smart Project Management” was a training course which, as the title suggests, aimed at building the capacity of youth organizations in the field of project management where, as observed by several of the actors involved in the youth work (e.g. NGOs, youth programmes responsible, beneficiaries), there was a lack of knowledge which lead to lower quality projects and, as consequence, in a decreased impact on the targeted youth.
The training aimed at helping the participants learn how to better define and plan a project (starting from the problem that is trying to solve and correlating it with its objectives, strategies, expected results and activities) and how to plan and manage resources using the modern tools that are now widely available but not promoted.
The target group of the project was represented by 18 youth workers from Romania, Turkiye, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia and Poland.
The training methods used were:
- Role-plays - where the participants simulated real life situations
- Brainstorming - for choosing the best solution to a given problem
- Simulations - to put in practice skills that they just acquired
- Lectures - to get information on new topics
- Fishbowl
- Buzzgroup
By participating in the course, the youth workers learned how to:
- identify the needs of the community they are working with
- design projects that address these needs
- evaluate these projects
- manage the resources of the project by using on-line tools (e.g. ProjectPier)
I was main trainer in the team, assisted by another Romanian and Turkish co-trainers. I was the one to define the methodology that was supposed to be used and also worked with the others on tailoring the sessions so they would fit the needs of the participants