Follow Through

Date/time
Date(s) - 20/06/2017 - 29/06/2017
All day

Locality
Skoulikaria, Greece

Project type

• Trainings

Selected participants

• Guest User

Summary what was training course about:

FOLLOW THROUGH was a training course which aimed to promote participatory democracy through community building and civic initiative. Training course was held in Epirus region, village of Skoulikaria of the municipality Georgios Karaiskakis. It involved 34 youth leaders, youth workers, trainers, project managers from 10 European countries.

The project wanted to address continuous problematization about the future of participatory democracy in Europe and the role of youth in shaping it. It sets off from the observed inconsistency between the international reputation of EU countries with regards to the quality of democratic institutions (Democracy Index, 2016) and their apparent incapacity to uphold the values that have made these institutions effective and popular in the first place (more recently manifested in the face of the economic and refugee crises). Ongoing challenges such as recession, unemployment, extremism and xenophobia are seen as by-products of Europe’s derailment from its constitutional values. Those challenges cannot be sustainably addressed by mere compliance with rules imposed from the top-down but necessarily through the demand of citizens for fairer, more inclusive and democratic, societies. The aim of this TC was to enhance the role of youth work in fostering local level solutions to European challenges of democracy and collective action.

FOLLOW THROUGH TC used diverse non-formal learning tools including experiential learning, cooperative learning, peer learning, and outdoor activities. Particular emphasis was given to the activity “Adventure in the Woods” which was successfully introduced during Inter Alia’s TC “Game of Challenges” in May 2015. The aim of the “adventure” is to facilitate the creation of a community able to cooperate and act collectively. It foresees that participants will be led to the woods in the rough terrain of Epirus and then, unwarned, will be left alone. For surviving this challenge, they will need to build a community and show leadership skills. Then, they will share their experience as part of a collective learning procedure. Regarding the planning of civic initiatives, participants worked in teams and used the project cycle management method.

FOLLOW THROUGH was designed and developed in order to have an immediate effect on involved communities through the development of partner organizations’ knowhow and to cause a multiple impact on European and international levels through the dynamics of the network.

There were 34 participants from 10 European countries on TC, from: Romania , Bulgaria , Spain  , Lithuania , Italy , Portugal , Slovakia , Greece , UK and Turkey

Participation in the project

If you would like to apply for project, please answer the following questions: