Training courseVienna, 18–25 August 2023Completed
Training Course: Participatory and Emancipatory Approaches for Youth Work
Youth workers are often on the front line of social and cultural confrontations because they work with very diverse and mostly marginalised communities, yet current approaches to cultural and social competence do not adequately equip them to address the complex factors that shape inequality and marginalisation, or to handle conflict in their daily work. This training for 30 participants from Austria, Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Spain, supported by Erasmus+ of the European Union, provided youth workers with a more comprehensive approach to culturally and socially competent practice, tackling inequality and marginalisation while handling conflict safely and constructively. It used innovative conflict-transformation practices to inform an emancipatory perspective that questions structures and processes of power instead of accepting them as the status quo.
Participants experienced two role-plays — a simulation and a board game — on the positive management of conflict, developed a training module applicable in their own context, learnt strategic planning and intervention elements, and designed follow-up initiatives in national teams that were implemented locally after the course with the team's support.
Objectives
- explore two innovative educational tools to raise the conflict-transformation competences of target groups and accompany them in developing their own initiatives for social and cultural justice;
- deepen understanding of concepts related to conflict transformation and analyse social and cultural conflicts;
- develop a bystander sense of intervention to address injustice and promote emancipation;
- provide a space for the transfer of the acquired knowledge and competences to local youth work;
- develop follow-up projects on local and international level in the field of conflict transformation.
Hosted by EMOTiC (Austria). Role of OEMFCI: partner and co-beneficiary.
Training courseVienna, 11–18 August 2023Completed
Training Course: Community Conflict Transformation Through Youth Work
Young people are the cornerstone of the present and the future, but the increasing prevalence of conflict undermines their potential and hinders their participation in civic life. This training for 27 participants from Austria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and France, supported by Erasmus+ of the European Union, trained youth workers to analyse community issues and to design and implement initiatives that tackle a grassroots problem to achieve positive change. Issues ranged from the environment, inclusion, diversity, education, digitalisation, human rights and gender to poverty, employment, sustainability, politics and climate change, all understood through the framework of visible and invisible violence.
Participants built a common understanding of violence, conflict, peace and transformation, were introduced to tools for analysing an existing conflict, and worked in national teams of three to design their own local initiatives with an implementation plan. All initiatives tackled the marginalisation and social exclusion of young people in their local areas and were implemented after the training as an integral part of the course.
Objectives
- explore current social conflicts affecting youth from different perspectives;
- enforce conflict-transformation processes as an empowering tool for youth civic participation;
- foster youth social engagement as a tool and an opportunity for community transformation;
- provide innovative and structured ways to intervene positively and motivate young people to engage locally;
- enhance youth workers' understanding of non-violent methods for civic participation and social transformation;
- support youth workers in acquiring skills to improve their civic involvement as agents of change;
- compile a concise training guide for further use at local level;
- reinforce synergies between formal education, non-formal training, societal involvement and social change.
Hosted by EMOTiC (Austria). Role of OEMFCI: partner and co-beneficiary.
