Non-Formal Education for Youth Workers — Turkey – European Youth Centre Břeclav

Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Training Course

Venue: Antalya, Turkey

Dates: 8-15 February 2018

Participants: Barbora Havranová, Xuan Mai Phamová, Veronika Wróbelová

Please read the info-pack

Participating countries: Italy, Romania, Lithuania, Spain, Poland, Sweeden, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Turkey

Hosting organisation:

Project report:

If you are wondering what we are doing, it is exactly as it looks. There are 25 people stacked on 12 chairs, trying to figure out how we are going to overcome the challenge in front of us – move from one side of the room to other without touching the ground and standing on the unstable chairs.

Do you think it’s impossible? Of course not.

This training course hosted in Antalya has been one of most memorable and fruitful experience for me. It was organized by IYACA (International Youth Activities Center Association) in beautiful and warm Antalya, less than 10 minutes of walk from the seaside.

There, 35 people from 8 different countries met. All of us were from different background and also age and interests – there was an university professor from Spain, lady who was working with disabled people in Bulgaria, PhD student from Sweden studying solar panels, lawyer from Lithuania who quitted her job to do something purposeful… Our age was spanning from 19 to 36 years and there were more differences than similarities, yet it was very easy to connect with them and we spent really good time in Antalya together.

There were two facilitators, Serdar and Beni who guided us on our way to learn and understand the methods of non-formal education. Everyday was really intense as we had sessions from 9 morning till 7 in the afternoon, however each of the session was really well prepared and interesting.

First day we had some teambuilding and trust games, followed with basic theoretical introduction into formal, non-formal and informal education. Day by day, we could experience some new method of non-formal education (forum theatre, dancing theatre, simulations etc.), covering some different topic (conflict dynamics, ethics, human rights…). As you can see, it was very diverse.

Sometimes it was a little bit out of my comfort zone, sometimes it was challenging – especially working in such international environment – as people have different views and habits, it wasn’t always smooth. Swedish people need structure while Spanish and Italians always go crazy and throw ideas randomly, Czech people are very critical and Southern nations tak criticism too personally… well, there were many funny interactions and misunderstandings, but we also learnt how to overcome them 🙂 (also these are a bit stereotyping statements and the world is not so black and white, so do not take them for 100%).

In the end, we went to visit a community center to see the non-formal methods in practice and then, we could also create our own method for teaching, test it out on our colleagues and plan how we are going to use our new knowledge in our personal and work life.

Apart from training, we went to the beach or in the evenings we organized intercultural nights where we could taste, drink and understand different cultures. We were also given one free day when they organized for us a tour around Antalya where we could visit factory, making Turkish delights (local sweets) or enjoy a boat trip in the sea and see the famous Antalya waterfalls.

I would like to thanks the organizers in Turkey as well EYCB for their support and for giving us the opportunity to participate in this project as it was really inspirational and empowering. I would like to also thank my Czech team which was simply amazing – we had great talks and lot of fun together and I cannot wait to see you in Czech Republic somewhere and lastly, our great group of participants that despite all the differences, was working as one big team 🙂 If you want to feel the atmosphere of the project, check out this video.

Xuan Mai Phamová

______________________

Summary of the training course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW9E8nmId3s

Reflections of participants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH64XWj_CE4

Webpage of the training course: https://nonformaleducation2018.blogspot.com.tr/

As we promised you during the training, we are sending you some relevant documents:

Nonformal Learning

http://ec.europa.eu/assets/eac/youth/library/reports/youth-work-nonformal-learning_en.pdf

https://www.salto-youth.net/downloads/4-17-2694/GP_Tools-For-Learning-in-non-formal-educ_GB_130912_HD.pdf

https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667913/tkit2.pdf/3ef38319-220b-474f-8960-8c0e1ae62444

Team building & Warm-up & Name games

https://pooloftrainers.sciint.org/sites/default/files/resources/Jabbertalk.pdf