Erasmus+, Klíčová Akce 1: tréninkový kurz (trénink pro trenéry)
Časová osa této mobility:
- videohovor se všemi účastníky: 1. týden v březnu (přesný termín bude určen na začátku r. 2026)
- tréninkový kurz: 7.—14. duben 2026, Ommen, Nizozemí
- zorganizování místních aktivit (ve své komunitě, kroužku, organizaci, atp.) ve které zúročíš své získané schopnosti/dovednosti z tohoto tréninkového kurzu
Český tým: 4 účastníci – pracovníci s mládeží (ve věku 20-26 let) věk. limit není striktní – je důležité splňovat profil účastníků
Před tím, než se přihlásíte na jakýkoliv náš projekt, důkladně si přečtěte všechny informace v sekci Chci vyjet na projekt a seznamte se s Pravidly účasti na zahr. projektech.
Prosím důkladně si přečtete informace o obsahu projektu níže. Informace o ubytování najdete zde. Pokud máte zájem se na tento projekt přihlásit, prosím odešlete vyplněnou přihlášku co nejdříve.
Pro to, abyste se na tento projekt přihlásili je nutné, abyste vlastnili nejen občanský průkaz (který musíte mít ze zákona), ale také platný cestovní pas (s platností min. ještě 150 dní od datumu začátku vámi vybraného projektu).
V rámci programu ERASMUS+ jsou následující finanční specifika: v rámci všech projektů je kompletně (ze 100%) zajištěno jídlo, ubytování, aktivity, a to vše je zcela pokryto z fondů EU programu ERASMUS+ a zařízeno organizátory. Účastníkům dále budou proplaceny cestovní náklady (reimbursement) z místa bydliště do místa konání projektu a to dle způsobu dopravy:
- €309 – v případě letecké dopravy. Účastníci, kteří na projekt poletí také budou platit €75/účastník poplatek hostitelské organizaci
- €417 v případě ‚zelené‘ pozemní dopravy (autobusy, vlaky). Zelená doprava = min. 51% celkové cesty je absolvováno autobusy/vlaky. Účastníci cestující zeleně účastnický poplatek neplatí.
Účastníkům bude proplacen celý rozpočet na cest. náklady bez ohledu na to, na kolik účastníky jejich reálné cest. náklady vyjdou. V případě zelené dopravy účastníkovi bude vyplaceno €417 a v případě letecké dopravy €234. Na rozpočet pro zelenou dopravu máte nárok i v případě, že využijete jednoho letu (důležité je, aby 51% celkové cesty bylo vykonáno po zemi = autobusy, vlaky).
Pokud tedy využijete pozemní dopravy (např. linkami do Amsterdamu s FlixBusem), svou účastí na projektu si ještě vyděláte.
Hostitelská organizace: Stichting De Olde Vechte
Účastnící se země: Lotyšsko, Itálie, Španělsko, ČR, Rumunsko, Řecko, Portugalsko, Rakousko, Nizozemí
Popis projektu:
Key Dates:
- First week of March. Zoom call with all participants, information call and preparation on the training;
- The training starts on Tuesday 7th of April 2026 at 19.30 and ends on Monday 13 April at 19.00;
- The accommodation is open to arrive on Monday 6th of April at 11.00 am;
- The accommodation is open until 14th of April 10.00 am before departure.
Project Concept:
Up Next is an advanced training on improving professional skills related to non-formal education and the facilitation of non-formal learning programs. The training aims at engaging youth workers into developing their facilitation skills, as well as designing and implementing their own activities and programs that work, building on their current learning needs.
The target group/participants‘ profile of the project are young youth workers active within youth organisations, who after the training will engage in organising learning events on a local level.
Objectives
Project summary:
Up Next is an advanced training on improving professional skills related to non-formal education and the facilitation of non-formal learning programs. Participating youth workers engage in developing their facilitation skills, and build on their own current learning needs. The group learns through implementing the Piet Winkelaar’s Phase Model for designing and organising their own activities and programs that work.
After the training, participants take their training experience and use it in organising learning events on a local level.
General Aims:
- 36 young youth workers engage in a series of dynamic, professional development activities (including a training event);
- they improve their professional skills related to non-formal education and the facilitation of non-formal learning programs (with the help of Piet Winkelaar’s Phase Model);they spread their knowledge and experience among other youth workers through local activities.
Specific Objectives:
- developing key competencies as youth workers;
- strengthening the field of youth work through professional development activities focused on the creation and facilitation of engaging work forms;
- sharing knowledge related to non-formal and informal education; sharing supporting theories and concepts on how to create and facilitate a learning project, how to stimulate participation, and how to ensure an educational value;
- practicing in a supportive intercultural community, working with professionals in the field;
- sharing already existing tools and work forms while improving these thus bringing innovation to the field of youth work;
- sharing knowledge and experience with other professionals through local training events; putting learnings into practice through local youth events;
- strengthening the presence and quality of youth work in general;
- inspiring European partnerships among youth organizations and institutions.
Proposed takeaways:
- deeper understanding of youth work and practical implementation of non-formal education methods; effective guiding of the learning process of participants;
- learning the difference between non-formal and informal learning, spotting these and working with them;
- creating informal work forms, learning in-depth about the creation of engaging and meaningful learning activities (mapping needs, putting together elements, reaching desired outcomes, creating outputs with the program, organizing and preparing activities, enabling creativity and talents);
- facilitation of these work forms; learning difference between teaching and facilitating; developing skills and competencies enabling to guide a learning process of a group;
- polishing method and designing multiple days learning programs that work;
- discovering youth projects and possibilities within Erasmus+;
- gaining cultural knowledge.
In more detail:
About Us:
Olde Vechte, as a youth center, we have been dedicated to empowering young people for many years. Our focus has always been simple: extending the opportunities given by the formal education system through dynamic and engaging activities – activities that put people at the center of their learning process, activities that invite young people to learn more about themselves and others. We have always been inspired by the capabilities of our participants – while working with them, we have realized that they are full of creativity and often they only need a supportive environment that encourages them to put their ideas into practice – and this inspiration kept fueling us over the years.
We love what we do and we are always finding new ways to get better. Working with young people is like an ongoing puzzle, there are always new situations and needs that ask for our attention – while continuously refining our methods and tools, we keep growing as professionals. This ongoing curiosity drives us not only in our work but also when we mentor other youth organizations.
While working with our core team of young professionals and some of our partner organizations, we noticed something important: non-formal education is the tool of a youth worker, still, during this past period, fewer and fewer people are able to work with it. A lot of these youth workers come from the formal education field and they struggle to grasp the essence of youth work, non-formal learning, and informal learning in general. They miss specific knowledge and skills that would allow them to guide learning processes (they struggle to engage young people, they lack creative and inclusive work forms, they don’t know how to create a learning transfer, and they are not able to grab spontaneous learning moments).
In an effort to address this situation, we decided to create a series of professional development opportunities focused on the creation and facilitation of inclusive learning experiences. Our goal is to support the youth workers of our partner organizations in developing a set of skills that are needed to guide others while they learn. We will do this by organizing a series of local and international activities, together with a professional development course in the Netherlands. From the wide picture (how do people learn, what is non-formal education, what is the role of a youth worker) we will move closer to specific tools and techniques (steps of designing inclusive work forms and an engaging learning program, coaching and mentoring techniques while guiding others, working with own resources, embracing unplanned events and creating learning experiences out of these).
By doing this, we aim to support the skill development of young professionals within the field of youth work. By guiding and empowering young individuals, these professionals will broaden the field of education, providing more people with the opportunity to access inclusive, high-quality learning experiences. As a result, more people will be able to navigate complex social situations (such as cultural conflicts or social gaps) from a collaborative mindset while taking leadership roles. This will lead to economic development and will pave the path toward a society that offers equal opportunities for everyone (regardless of their culture, or background).
The project itself consists of a few activities:
- preparation period with online and physical meetings and preparation assignments in national and international groups;
- an online preparatory meeting for the entire international project community;
- a physical training event in the Netherlands focused on gaining knowledge and developing skills that are needed in the field of youth work;
- a follow-up period with system development and outreach activities, and dissemination actions.
To narrow the focus of this project, we created the following general aims:
- involving 36 young youth workers in a series of dynamic, professional development activities (including a training event);
- supporting these people to improve their professional skills related to non-formal education and the facilitation of non-formal learning programs (with the help of Piet Winkelaar’s phase model);
- spreading this knowledge and experience among other youth workers through local activities.
Activities
The project consists of a few main phases and it includes 9 different partner organizations.
We aim to work with young professionals between the age of 20-26 who would like to advance their skills as youth workers while working together with our partner organizations. These people already have some basic knowledge when it comes to the field of education and they already have some group work and facilitation experience (through the activities organized by our partners and/or others); still, as a lot of them come mainly from the formal education field, they miss the essence of youth work, and they struggle to guide learning processes from a participatory approach. As the project itself consists of different parts and is not restricted to one training event, we would like to involve people who are active within the organizations and who will implement the learnings back home through different follow-up stages.
To create an enriching experience, we decided to involve also some young people who have fewer opportunities, belonging to the target groups of our partners and youth workers. These people were all participants in previous youth projects, and they all got inspired to create similar opportunities for others. Involving them strengthens the relationship between youth workers and their participants. Youth workers have the opportunity to better understand the needs of their participants through close collaboration, while young people become empowered to take initiative and step into leadership roles as educators.
While creating this project proposal, we already included some of our participants through the partner organizations. They shared their observations and needs through some online calls and they also helped us spread a questionnaire among other youth workers in their networks. We gathered the inputs of these youth workers and together with our core team members and partners, we created a draft plan that would ensure the inclusion of each participant after the project approval as well.
Once the project gets approved, we will finalize the selection process and we will move on to the preparation phase. Our partners will create some local preparation assignments together with our core team members and the main facilitator. These assignments will be spread throughout the whole preparation phase and they will support the engagement of each participant. Each preparation assignment will be inclusive, dynamic, and varied – our participants will get the chance to do some of them individually and they will also be asked to work in national teams (thus strengthening the cooperation even before meeting for the main event). We will also have an online preparatory visit and each selected participant will be invited to join. Together, they will talk about the outcomes of their local assignments and they will think about new assignments that they can do in international teams. They will talk about the main training activity and they will share further questions and
concerns that should be included in the final program. They will also share some of their ideas when it comes to specific program parts.
The main training event is a fusion of theories and practices coming from the field of non-formal education. Based on the inputs received, our participants will work in smaller and bigger groups to develop their youth work practices. They will focus on developing specific skills that are needed to guide the learning process of others (such as mapping the needs, designing activities with educational value, connecting with the group, making sure that there is adequate reflection, keeping the engagement, or handling unexpected situations and turning these into learning opportunities). They will have regular reflection sessions to internalize the learning process and they will also have peer conversations in international groups. They will develop their skills in creating and facilitating inclusive educational work forms and they will constantly reflect with their national teams to see how they can put the outcomes into practice back home.
After the main activity, they will prepare their system development and outreach activities – they will create one youth event for the youngsters of their local communities and one mini-training event for the youth workers of their local communities. Each event will attract a minimum of 15 participants. The profile of the youth workers is the same as the profile of those who are directly connected to our project activities, while most of the young participants come from difficult backgrounds (facing financial or social difficulties, having troubles within the formal education system, being unemployed or facing geographic obstacles). Through these events, our participants create movement, while strengthening the presence and quality of youth work in their environments.
Through the dissemination phase, all our participants and partners will share their outcomes and experiences.
Impact
We expect to have a valuable impact on an individual, local, regional, national, and international level.
Our specific project results will be the following:
- a collection of non-formal education methods and practices that can be used by other youth workers and youth organizations;
- local actions in each participating country; these events aim to support other professionals in strengthening their youth work practice while engaging and supporting their young participants; through these activities, our participants are invited to put their learnings into practice;
- articles and social media posts that share the experiences of everyone involved – together with specific tools and insights.
Our participants will develop specific skills that are needed to create and facilitate non-formal and informal learning activities. They will:
- join various sessions focused on the principles of non-formal education and they will create a better understanding of the approach and method behind their activities.
- learn how to zoom out and they will create a set of guidelines that can support them later on.
- discover various ways to map the needs of their young people and they will also understand what it takes to develop an educational activity (from the beginning until the end, from the initiative to the evaluation).
- work on specific skills that can support them while creating and facilitating their work forms (skills such as planning, critical thinking, group management, adaptability, empathy, delegation, and performance).
- hear inspiring case studies and they will reflect on these as they will:
- define their learning points and they will look for ways to put these into practice.
- make mistakes, and they will develop a curious mindset
- realize that through mistakes they can learn and this will empower them for the future (it will give them the confidence and motivation to try new work forms and approaches). By gaining knowledge and developing specific skills, they will feel supported and backed during their youth work practice.
- achieve greater success and in the meantime, they will also learn more about themselves. Also, they will benefit from the opportunity to join an international learning community.
- based on our participatory approach, they will share various experiences and this will strengthen their learning process. They will work and reflect in varied international groups and they will stimulate each other through questions, observations, and feedback.
- learn how to connect to others and this will strengthen their youth work practice. Having young people with fewer opportunities in the group will certainly support our participants in developing specific soft skills that are needed in this field of work (such as communication, patience, emotional intelligence, teamwork, conflict resolution, and the ability to lead from behind).
- the organizations will exchange methods, tools, and approaches while strengthening their international presence.
- They will create more engaging and valuable activities for and together with young people through their newly trained youth workers and their fresh perspectives. Inspired by the ideas and learning processes of this project, they will feel encouraged to develop new activities
- experiment with new forms and tools, all from a participatory approach.
- build their capacity through their youth workers and they will create more movement within their local communities. Their youth workers will involve other young professionals, thus expanding the organizations.
Together they will reach and support more youngsters and this will have a positive impact on the local communities as well (more engagement, more initiatives, and more innovation). The local communities will become support systems for their youngsters (this is extremely important, especially for those who have fewer opportunities due to their backgrounds). This sense of belonging will make the communities stronger people will feel more confident to step up, take initiative, and contribute to the well-being of others around them.
This movement will create an impact on an international level as well. By training youth workers, we will expand the quality standards and we will strengthen the presence of youth work in Europe. These people will support young people and will inspire them to take more leadership roles from a place of understanding and cooperation. This will lead to a society that appreciates the strengths of each individual, a society that
celebrates differences and offers equal opportunities to each individual (regardless of their background). This movement will help while trying to find solutions to existing social problems, such as cultural conflicts and social gaps. Young people will understand the importance of inclusion and they will strive to actively promote diversity, respect, and equality in their communities.
