?Dance with me? was a 10-day training course for youth workers who explored the opportunities to incorporate contemporary dance as an innovative approach in youth work when the learner is in the center of the process. The activity took place in Karlovo, 11-20 June, 2015. Hosting and coordinating organization was Ideas Factory. 29 youth workers from 9 NGOs and 9 countries participated in the event (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel, Greece, Georgia, and the Netherlands). They had 2 trainers, helped by 5 experienced facilitators. The participants were selected according to the criteria that follows: - To be active in their NGOs and their work with young people - To be highly motivated to take part in the training course, to demonstrate it and to be willing to learn - To be motivated to use in practice the knowledge and skills gained - To be ready for physically intensive workouts Activities: - Workshops displaying methods and techniques of contemporary dance, exploring its possibilities and creating frames to adapt it for the youth work on a local and international level - Workshops to demonstrate the best practices of the trainers and participants - Open workshops to attract local youth - Discussion groups helping the individual training process - Group rehearsals with coaching and video feedback - Open performances attracting the local community Goals: - To develop and improve creativity and proactiveness in participants, who are actively involved in youth work, social inclusion, cultural diversity, health and civil participation - To promote synergies, cooperation and sharing of non-formal education in the field of youth and to strengthen the awareness and the understanding of cultural diversity - To increase the quality and effectiveness of youth work on a local level and reaching those with fewer opportunities, marginal and disorganized ones, to encourage social inclusion - To support the international youth work and to create basis for future international projects that use grass root initiatives - To encourage youth mobility and youth work as a step for tackling youth unemployment Results from the Training Course: - Developed and improved knowledge and skills in the participants for: contemporary dance techniques; 2) Techniques for responsible attitude towards one?s health; 3) non-verbal communication and expression; 4) creative and entrepreneurial techniques and attitude; 5) inclusion, getting to know each other?s culture, tolerance, team work, etc. - Discussions of ideas and projects for cooperation between participating organizations and setting a common decision for the creation of new upgrading projects - Developed knowledge, skills and instruments to incorporate dance and physical movement in group work, which they used in practice when creating and executing performances in front of the local community - Participants and local youth had direct contact with each other which added value to the process of non-formal education, the mobility in Erasmus + programme and the opportunities that are offered to Bulgarian youth by the trainings and exchanges - Increased level of self-confidence, creativity and proactiveness in participants - Strengthened our new partnership with ?Vasil Levski ? 1861? Community center, Karlovo. We received an invitation for future cooperation and discussed our future projects and how they could be useful for the activities involving young people of the community - Built-up partnerships with the local authorities and institutions: the municipality of Karlovo; Adult mentally challenged women?s home, of Banya town, the municipality of the town of Banya and Kliment village, local NGOs. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo3gCJLn_YE ? final video showing the diversity of the training course, from the training hall rehearsals to the performances in front of the local community in three different locations and in front of three different audiences and the diversity of social groups - https://www.facebook.com/elena.jacinta/videos/10207465098051486/ - video where participants from the training in Karlovo from Latvia and Bulgaria demonstrate open workshop on contact improvisation in a park in Riga, Latvia - Video from a training course where sightless and sighted children with fewer opportunities work together, using elements from the training course in Karlovo. Place: Latvia; Participants from Latvia, Finland and Russia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKsnbwuKz3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87HqK-T6OkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R0A9tVoE58 - Project proposal from Egyesec that involve partners from this project into a new one, that is planned to be realized in Israel and Hungary as a next step, upgrading ?Dance with Me? - Video from a build-up activity of three Bulgarian participants in an advanced dance project that took place in Hungary with the same trainers (2014-3-HU02-KA105-000485, 20-29 July 2015): https://youtu.be/Hn4o113cDzY