YOUTHIFICATION-2016

9 - 17 September 2016 / Leysin (CH) / SUBKULT

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The full Story of Youthification - 2016

The training course "YOUTHIFICATION - 2016" was organized by Subkult - Association for Mobility & Exchange in the frames of the Interim Solution for Erasmus ...

#youthification 

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Video by Seg Kirakossian

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Day 7: The last day

The last day of a training course is always challenging for every trainer because it represents a summary of the whole work done so far in the last few days. Slowly Nik and I started the morning session with the presentations of the participants about their proposals and ideas for international projects. Clearly, for each trainer and project coordinator of such project is crucial to see commitment on the side of the participants to really activate themselves and create new ways of collaborating with their colleagues from this training course. There were many interesting ideas that can promise high potential and probability to be implemented when they go back in their countries, just it will require great support from their home organizations. That is why, after this session we provided clear information about the possibilities of Erasmus Plus Programme and how these opportunities can be used in order to turn their ideas into real projects. Nik and I got many questions during the presentation of the Erasmus Plus Programme and I personally was very happy to see the interest among the participants.

 We made a break for the lunch and when we came back we asked once again the participants to think about their commitment to themselves, to their home organizations but also to the other participants that they met here. What will you commit to? How important is this commitment for you? Do you know to identify real steps that you will be able to implement in the next 6 months? For this, we provided a template “Commitment Agreement” that each participant filled in individually. We collected them and once we scan them and save them in our documentation, we are going to send them back together with their personal messages that they were writing for each other in the last few days. It is a nice method to remind the participants after some time, when they are already back home, what did they commit to and what did they receive as messages from the others. It might be a great motivation to keep up with the positive spirit and continue the dedication to youth work even after the training course.

 The last session was dedicated to the process of evaluation of the whole training course. We went back to the first day when the participants put their expectations on the wall, now we were checking which of those expectations were fulfilled and which are still standing there. The evaluation focused on different aspects of the training course, content-wise, logistics and the whole organization, about their personal learning and about the trainers. After a nice round of feedback, we finished the training course officially by revealing the “Secret Friends” and giving certificates to the participants. Of course, in the evening we organized a small farewell party with some drinks.

 Stev

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Day 6: Mapping our community

And…Where is Leysin?

This morning, our beautiful Leysin got lost in fog and it was our job to find it again. Probably the Swiss Alps wanted to show us their other side which is also inspiring.

Together with Leysin we woke up with a good morning energizer from our great trainers. We really need those energizers because we do not get a lot of sleep over here, just because we want to use every minute to be together and share many things and learn from each other.

Imagine a world with no boundaries and you put a youth worker there. What would he/she do? How would he/she create the perfect youth work? This was our task of the day. Money was no problem and our imagination was at its highest. After we gave our ideas, we evaluated each other’s ideas by commenting with stickers our pros and cons. It was a good exercise because it made us think deeper into the topic what youth work really should be. Giving feedback to the others, helped into our self-assessment for our own ideas. Later we came from the imagination to the reality. After mapping our community, now it was perfect time to check the reality. The trainers gave us time to think about possible proposal, an idea that we would like to implement. Then we were contacting our sending organization and other relevant organizations from our community that can give valuable contribution to our ideas. The point was to start thinking and acting upon real engagement in our local community after we go back home. We really think that this was the first step which will bring us further to the implementation of our ideas.

At the end of the day it was time for reflection and today it was really something different. We should paint inside a “Mandala”. For those who don’t know Mandala is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Indian religions, representing the universe. It is a circle with geometrical shapes in it. Munks created a complex mandala out of sand and put a lot of effort and time into it and after they pray to it , in the end they destroied it. This symbolises that  everything is temporary and we should not get demotivated if things dont go as we planned them. It was such a great time reflecting about the day while we painted the Mandalas.

In the evening we had a great ending with Francisco “The magician”. One of the participants of this training who has awesome skills in magic and made us wonder if magic does really excist with his tricks combined with carisma and laughs. Who knows, maybe magic does still excist in the beautiful Leysin...

  By Lea, Gazmend, Dragana

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Day 5: On top

Leysin gave us a warm welcome with beautiful weather again. Right after breakfast I had some time until the session starts, to walk up to the hill to Hotel Central Residence, where we had a training course last year organized by Stev and Nik as well. It was just wonderful to bring back these memories and here I am again here, for a new challenge.

I got back and our first session today lasted a bit longer than usual, because we spent more than 2 hours of asking questions and thinking about answers connected with the topics of youth work. The trainers printed out for us the questions which we wrote into the application form when we applied for this training course. At first we divided into 2 groups, the first with Stev, the second with Nik and we moved to the roof where we had a nice calm atmosphere, perfect for concentrated discussion. Some interesting questions emerged from the debate: How to motivate young people to get engaged? What should we do as youth workers in order to support young people’s potential? How to find partners for international projects? Which relationship – partnership should there be between young people and youth worker? How can I keep on training myself and develop my competences and youth worker? During the discussion everyone contributed with some words from their experience. The trainers facilitated nicely the debate and many of us got very useful information and advice on most of our questions. From such an interesting debate we directly moved to the second training session, but during the break we celebrated Tasha´s birthday! Happy birthday Tasha! Shortly before lunch we started a new topic that was introducing ourselves to the imaginary world where youth work still does not exist and we are the ones who should create the perfect youth work concept. We had some time to reflect and write our findings, so tomorrow we were supposed to present them and give feedback to each other.  

But the most important part of the day came after lunch. Our free afternoon which we honestly deserved after so much hard work! And for almost all of us it was the choice to make a trip to the mountain La Bernuese. A few heroes chose to hike up until the peak! (And we got a bit lost in the forest... even though a Swiss guide was with us - Marcel). More than 800 meters of altitude from the hotel to the top in two hours... Such pro‘s! The rest of the group chose the easy way by taking the cable car and they reached the peak in 10 minutes, but they didn´t gain the glory. However, we all gathered up there on 2048 m above sea level and enjoyed the sun and fresh air.

What to say about the Berneuse peak? Beautiful view, amazing landscape, hot and sunny weather, blue sky, expensive restaurant (for the people who are not from here) and a lot of fun! We spend 2 hours over there and we really charged our batteries for the upcoming 2 last days of the training course.

Pietro and Maria

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Video made by Goran Jordović

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Elisa Dhiari (Albania)

I love sports and nature. I have a great family who supports me a lot. Being able to help people in need has been my dream since a kid that is why medicine (intending trauma emergency) is a tool I have choosen to fulfill my passion.

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Beside the workload, it’s important to also enjoy the time together and to relax. Leysin - which is located just above Aigle - with its mountains offers an optimal location with a great panorama.

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A key point of YOUTHIFICATION is, to bring back and transfer the knowledge into the partner organizations. By making contact with an NGO in the youth field and to develope a youth work activity it was possible to work on this task.

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Natalia Krupińska (Poland)

People have been always a great significance to me, I realise how uch the world has to offer and how much an individual is capable of doing. There is no other thing which makes my heart beat faster than creating meaning by helping others. I am happy to be able to travel and be an ambassador of Poland.

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Video made by Goran Jordović

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Day 4: I love the sessions because...

Today was a beautiful day! We began with a creative energizer as we always do. Then it was time to research as we were seeking for best youth work practices all over the world. It is a great way to get inspired applying those examples into our work. During the presentations we discussed the information we got from our research. It’s interesting to get to know about the experiences of our friends who come from different countries.

As we are writing this article participants of the training are walking by, so we will ask them a question:

Why do we love the sessions?

I love the sessions because they involve creativity. Sometime we have to draw or use an artistic approach. That way we can have different ways of approaching the topic. Coloring the mandala was the perfect way to finish the sessions leaving our minds clear and fresh.

I love the sessions because I am learning new things in new ways.

I love the sessions because many questions I had before coming here are being answered, and what I like most is that it is me answering those questions.  

I love the sessions because people are not taking selfies during our meetings, which would be disrespectful :P

I love the sessions because the trainers inspire me every day to achieve my best. Sadly there is not enough time to become a super-goat (youth-worker) right here, right now.

I love the sessions because of the games and people. The worst thing is that it cannot last forever.

I love the sessions because I cannot find a single negative element. Some people say the super youth worker is a goat, but for me is a pink unicorn with wings.

We don’t love only the sessions. We love also the fondue. We love the secret friend game. From what we are noticing, far away there are two ways to play the secret game friend. One is to think of creative ways to surprise your secret friend. The other way is when you are not inspired, just go and buy as many stuff as you can and give it to him/her.  

  By Alex, Kuba , Moritz & Elisa

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Eight warriors decided to walk to the top of the Berneuse (2045m). 792m in two hours. Pro! 

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Michaela Lakova (BG/NL) is a visual artist and researcher currently based in Rotterdam. She came to Leysin to film for two days. The film will serve as a documentary and enables to transfer the experiences and the knowledge to the partner organizations.

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Video made by Goran Jordović

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Natasha Rose (United Kingdom)

I am a 22 year old student currently studying a pharmacy degree up in Sunderland. I am a confident, energetic person who always sees the best qualities in people. I enjoy laughing and having fun and spreading those positive vibes to the people around me.

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Aleksei Smulski (Estonia)

I am Eesti People to People member of the board, worked as photographer in the daily newspaper in Estonia. I am studing history at the moment at the university.