Date/time
Date(s) - 10/12/2019 - 17/12/2019
All day
Locality
Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain
Project type
Selected participants
Youth work is commonly understood as a tool for development, inclusion and citizenship of young people. In order to enhance all these dimensions, we choose to mix the opportunity provided by the ERASMUS+ framework together with local resources of each organisation in order to equip our youth workers to better address the real needs of young unemployed people and to increase their life skills.
This training tackled these issues by designing activities that lead to improving skills, creating a multicultural learning environment for youth workers by using three main non-formal education methods: improvisation, storytelling and spoken-word. Hence, the main purpose of this project was to enhance the quality of activities led by youth organizations in Europe in order to increase soft skills for young people that will ultimately enhance youth employability.
The training’s objectives were:
– enhance specific competences in working with young unemployed people for 22 youth workers from 11 different European countries in a 6 days thematic international training course;
– increase personal development perspectives for at least 110 young unemployed people from 11 countries in Europe over a period of 4 months;
– establish quality approaches in activities and projects related to developing employability skills for young people for 11 organisations in Europe.
The methods that were used inside the international TC are facilitation methods, generally used in a non-formal context of learning that reinforced the learning outcomes of the participants. Most important, three specific non-formal educational methods were used in the design of the training course in order to reach the content of the mobilites (life skills development):
Improvisation
Improvisation is a state of being and creating action without pre-planning. This can be when an individual or group is acting, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, talking, creating artworks, problem solving, or reacting in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act. Improvisational Theater, often called improv or impro, is a form of theater where most or all of what is performed is created at the moment it is performed. In its purest form, the dialogue, the action, the story and the characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds.
Storytelling
Everyone loves stories and to listen to stories. There is hardly anyone who has not heard a story during their childhood. Stories keep people engaged and lets them feel that they are also participating in the narration. Any learning happens when people are engaged in the making of the activities. If storytelling is made into an interesting experience and fun filled activity where the listeners also participate in telling, guessing, manipulating, it could be a joyous learning experience. This method will develop an understanding among participants about the importance of storytelling in youth work on one hand, and in life, on another hand, it will enable youth workers to use storytelling as a strategy for effective learning processes and will develop important communication skills for young people to use in their daily lives.
Spoken word
Spoken word is a type of poetry intended for performance. Though some spoken word poetry may also be published on the page, the genre has its roots in oral traditions and performance of the Afro American people. Spoken word can encompass or contain elements of rap, hip-hop, storytelling, theater, music. Characterized by rhyme, repetition, improvisation, and word play, spoken word frequently refers to issues of social justice, politics, race, and community. Spoken word may draw on music, sound, dance, or other kinds of performance to connect with audiences. Spoken Word is writing that is meant to be read out loud. Some examples of spoken word that are more familiar to the larger audience are stories, poems, monologues, slam poetry, rap and even stand-up comedy.
Participants were from Spain 
, Romania 
, Belgium 
, Greece 
, Croatia 
, France 
, Italy 
, Cyprus 
, Estonia 
, Portugal 
and Slovakia 
. There were 2 participants from each country.
