Colours of youth work

An international expert seminar, Erasmus+
2019

What happened when 34 people from 18 countries representing 28 international organisations meet in Bardejov, Slovakia? Our project Colours of youth work!

During our six-day long international seminar in Bardejov, east part of Slovakia, 34 youth workers from 28 countries from Asia and Europe shared their best practices in youth work.

The seminar was targeted at youth workers and managers in youth organisations who are interested in sharing practices and learning from each other to enrich their youth work and toolbox, provide better services to young people, improve the work of their organisation and create more impact and build lasting international partnerships to support each other and run activities together.

Colours of Youth Work Manual is an outcome of this international seminar. It contains a long list of useful activities and their main objectives, which can be implemented into many other workshops, seminars, and projects. The main idea behind the manual of good practices in youth work is to make local, regional, and national activities in the youth field more visible. The COYW Manual offers feedback from our participants who had experienced these activities during the seminar.

The COYW Manual shares activities and good practices from 34 experienced youth workers. These activities are easily accessible for other NGOs focused on working with youth and based on the different needs of communities.

The shared practices related to any aspect of youth work, participants shared tools and approaches in how to support and work directly with young people, how projects and activities are managed, how to co-operate with different types of stakeholders in youth work, how to create and measure impact, how to provide information about opportunities to young people, whatever it is that they think they do well and is worth sharing.

Once there were many excerpts from magazines and newspapers to show how the material can be used to resolve conflicts between volunteers. Later the participants met at an improvised stand-up workshop called "f**k up moments of youth work".

The participants also tested the power of art therapy on their own skin, as well as new tools and aids, which they immediately included in their portfolio. 

​Funding was provided by the Slovak National Agency for ERASMUS+: Youth in Action, Key Action 1, Mobility of Youth Workers, IUVENTA.

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