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Turning Mirrors into Windows
Turning Mirrors into Windows
Start date: Jan 1, 2016,
End date: May 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
“Turning Mirrors into Windows” represents a training course, which took place in Razlog, Bulgaria, from April 14th till April 21st. The organizations, which were involved in the project, had a long-term cooperation with each other and shared the experience and same interests in youth participation field, which is the main topic of the project.
The main aim of the project was to motivate young people to act for a change, to create an atmosphere, where youth workers could inspire each other, share knowledge and experience, discover, discuss and come up with the possibilities on how to be a multiplier of their skills, knowledge and competences in general, on how to change themselves, how to help other youngsters and youth workers to become an active change-makers, to help them have an impact on their local and in some ways international society. The project aimed to provide the youth leaders and youth workers with the competences to understand the importance of youth participation, to see the different aspects of the topic and see the role it could play while confronting problematic issues, to perceive the image, their local municipalities create in their communities in the aspect of youth involvement and inclusion. “Turning Mirrors into Windows” as the project financed by Erasmus+ program, aimed to use non-formal education as the tool, to raise the awareness about the possibilities and opportunities that youth has in modern type of governance. During the training course the strategies for youth workers and young leaders were developed that will support them to make actions and implement activities for multiplying their competences. The objectives of the training course were discovering the diverse aspects of youth participation, reflecting about roles and their responsibilities, challenges and needs, understanding different types of active citizenship for youth and the potential role that each individual could play as a change-maker and active part of the society. The considered other objectives were developing practical skills as well, to be more inclusive and attentive in group-work, decision-making processes and in every-day life as active, conscious citizens, gaining practical competences in intercultural dialogue, networking both in an international and national level, communicating, campaigning.
The project’s goal was to create a space for sharing the best practice and tools for supporting active citizenship and youth participation, making an active platform for creating projects with powerful impact and visible results in their communities. The project was aiming to have an atmosphere where young leaders will discuss and improve cognition in the field of non-formal education and by that will achieve skills on how to multiply notions of youth participation in future projects and where they will realize the opportunities that Erasmus+ offers. Activities of the training course were strongly based on the methods of non-formal education, self-assessment, development of the competences with a regard to individual needs and learning styles of the participants, self-directed learning. The participants were able to not only learn through experience and reflect on their own interactions but also were encouraged to create ideas on how to become actively engaged in their society, share their experiences and to create new project ideas with other participants to build a strong network of young Europeans. Furthermore, participants got the chance to present their ideas and give each other feedback on their project proposals which will be implemented later on in their local communities.