Spice Up you Youth Club

Aims & objectives

* Provide youth leaders and trainers from across Europe with the skills, knowledge and information relevant to being trainer in an all-inclusive youth work practice
* Enable participants to provide training to other youth leaders and youth workers in their own communities and organisations.
AIMS:

* Discuss differences and similarities in rural and urban youth work practices
* Develop and explore training tools and practices from rural and urban youth work together.
* Create a space to share best practices and develop co-operation among participants from ECYC and RYEurope member organisations

OBJECTIVES:
* Understand and explain the role of the trainer and identify the key characteristics and quallities of an effective trainer.
* Present a wide range of training tools and techniques, for the participants to use them as resource in their work and therefore introduce new methods in youth work.
* Identify the range of issues involved in preparing and evaluating training for all-inclusive youth work and some ways of doing this.
* Explore a number of ways handling difficult situations which might are during training.
*Understand and explain the basic principles of the theory of learning styles.
* Work further on new project ideas developed during the training among ECYC and RYEurope and their member organisations.
* Encourage ECYC and RYEurope member organisations to combine resources to achieve common goals both on the international level and on the national level.

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

Profile of participants:
- Participants of one or more past activities organised by ECYC, RYEurope or their member organisations.
- Strong involvement in an ECYC or RYEurope member organisation with an active interest in sharing the learning gained during the seminar.
- Between the age of 18-35
- Fluent in English, as this will be the working language of the seminar.
- Motivated to develop one's knowledge and skills on training and to share one's experiences with other participants
- Committed to attend the full duration of the course.

* Training team: Annina Hirvonen & Eija Kauniskangas (FI), Delme Harris (UK), Anna Olvenius (SWE), Marios Argyrides (CY), Skaidrite Dzene (LV) + educational advisor Elizabeth Kasa

Participants from: Iceland, Finland, Sweden, UK, Belgium, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Macedonia, Austria, Ireland, Russia, Slovenia

Training methods used & main activities

- small group work
- drama and role play - e.g. Gaia - the assembly of the nations (democracy education role play developed under the Finnish ADAE campaign)
- simulation games
- group work (designing training sessions as a part of the training for trainers)
- debriefing
- energisers (from the ECYC Game Book and others)
- teambuilding games

Outcomes of the activity

- Skills to work in an international team
- Skills to prepare and deliver a training
- Leadership skills were increased
- Learning about oneself through self-assessment
- Increased awareness of other cultures, countries and ways of doing things
- Using games (energisers, teambuilding games, icebreakers) in training and in everyday work as a youth worker
(final report can be found at www.ecyc.org)

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was the Course Director, so I was the head of the training team and responsible for the final report, among other things.

I worked on this training for 7 days as a full time trainer.