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The Volunteer’s Map of European Citizenship
The Volunteer’s Map of European Citizenship
Start date: May 1, 2016,
End date: Feb 28, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
"The future of Europe depends on its youth."Today, many young people have low expectations of life, many have negative feelings towards the European Union, facing high unemployment, being confronted with career expectations of family/friends, being confused and disappointed in society and have little trust in local/national politics nor in the European Commission. Yet they are part of a plural society in which more and more a diversity of cultures with different kind of social backgrounds and / or beliefs are represented. Knowledge of and acquainted with other cultures, backgrounds and / or beliefs contributes to the ability to participate in a modern, multicultural (European) society. Youth work has an important role in the guidance of young people to maturity and into active citizenship, and the youth worker/leader is often the spider in the web. Through contact and easy accessibility activities, the youth worker/leader support young people in being an active citizen, with the ultimate aim to let young people participate in a modern, multicultural (European) society. Unfortunately we see in daily practice the struggle of workers to align the right activities and to implement the correct methods to assist youth. The training gather 20 partners with different kind of social and cultural background. Intercultural learning is one of the mainstream topics and with bringing them together in a small Armenian village we ask them to cooperate as an international team and to get acquainted with new cultures during the international evening, all working sessions, study visits and free time, as the group will live and work together for five days. Some objectives for participants are to learn about youth work practice across Europe; to develop knowledge and skills around the theme of active European citizenship; to explore the aims and objectives of the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme and to place it in the context of youth work and to develop cooperation across Europe and enhance European networking. These objectives clearly meets the objectives and priorities of the Erasmus+ programme in that it's develops a broader understanding of concepts of European citizenship; encourages the active participation of young people; promotes young people’s active citizenship in general; develops solidarity and promotes tolerance among young people and promotes European cooperation in the youth field.The working method that takes a central place during the training is peer education. The program will be divided to following themes: to reach out the training aims, we will also use games, role-play exercises, games, group work, discussions, brainstorming, round-tables and etc. The specific activities will be structured in such a way that participants would have opportunities to experience their own personal and professional development. To ensure this the trainers work within three overlapping and supportive models of practice: Jans and De Backer’s “3 Cs for successful participation” (Capacity, Connection & Challenge), The “Preparation, Presentation, Practice” model of non-formal learning and the innovated methodology "The TalentHouse method".The direct impact to the participants is to give them an understanding of different styles of work and working with other professional workers/leaders from different countries in Europe, and to give share in a direct way tools to improve the skills and knowledge. By bringing them close together they should increase their knowledge about youth work and the practise of Erasmus+ projects and to planned in outline a viable project which they can then go on to develop for implementation at a later date. Through the workshop "Innovating projects to promote European citizenship" we focus on partnerships and how to develop long term strategies for successful initiatives. We will emphasise the fact that sharing each others vision, aims and objectives can lead to effective partnership, and look for participants to make compromises within their own practice that will allow for the development of successful projects within the context of the Erasmus+ programme. The training will give participants’ skills for use in their own organisations with their own target groups, the project will have a longer term more sustainable impact across Europe. After going home, we expect that each participant will spread out the new learning tools and techniques to their colleagues who then are able to spread it further on to other colleagues or local partners. It might happen that this creates a so called snowball effect, which multiply the information to as many youth workers/leaders in the direct and nearby region. They should be able to start offering projects at a higher level, with a greater understanding of the non-formal learning process, and as a result their target groups will learn more and generally benefit more from their own participation in activities.