This Training Course for youth workers will bring together 48 people from 12 countries - Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Spain and the UK. It will take place in Worcester, UK, 1-7 November 2014. Recent events in Ukraine bring the need for peacebuilding and social cohesion sharply into focus. It is as neccessary now as it has ever been. This was the topic of discussion between EIL and several of the partners in this application at a recent Partnership building activity we were attending. This training resulted from the meeting and from EIL's recent experience in running a very successful workshop for adult education teachers on this topic through the Grundtvig programme. "As a global actor, the EU promotes integration as a means to support peace and prosperity and to overcome conflicts around the world. To this end peace building and conflict prevention are at the heart of the action of the EEAS. The EU aims to ‘promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples’ (TEU Art 3(1) as amended by the Lisbon Treaty) and to ‘preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security’ (Article 21(2))." http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/conflict_prevention/index_en.htm As an EU project, we seek to align ourselves with the EU's mission to promote peace. Our small contribution to this is to bring it down to a community level by bringing together youth workers and project staff with a passion to promote peace and social cohesion in their own communities and to encourage and equip their young people to do the same. There is an essential need for communities to handle conflict themselves but this doesn't always come naturally to people. Building peaceful and cohesive communities requires the acquisition of appropriate competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to help facilitate conflict resolution. Through this training, participants can gain competences and cascade the learning to other youth professionals and to the young people they work with. Through informal and non formal learning methods which are interactive and fun, participants will share their experiences and we will learn more about peacebuilding, conflict resolution, identity and culture and developing intercultural competences; good practice in youth work across Europe. It will help give youth workers ideas, new ways of working and new activities to try out with their young people. These are the expected outcomes of the course: > establishing a common understanding and frame of reference regarding the role of youth work in peacebuilding > sharing current working methods from around Europe and identifying good practice > Evaluating the dynamics of social cohesion - the things that unite and the things that divide communities > Exploring of the theory and practice of peacebuilding and the use of storytelling (personal stories) to promote peace > Examining cultural difference and learning to value this personally through this international experience > Conducting a skills analysis of a successful youth worker/youth project manager > Interactive skills development in conflict resolution (role play / simulation and analysis) > Individual and group reflection - "Change starts with the individual: identity, culture and intercultural competence"; preparing young people for active citizenship