"Youth Exchange for Youth Workers" of International Youth Studies - #InYouS project has been implemented successfully from 26 October to 03 November in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The aim of this exchange was to answer to the question "How to promote Youth Work and InYouS course". The objectives were:
To promote young people's involvement in Youth Work;
To get tools and competences to organize a Youth Work Promoting Campaign;
To develop a strategic promo campaign for the "International Youth Studies" distance learning course for their local communities.
This activity the last face to face International meeting before the last stage of the project: The Evaluation meeting in Belgium, April 2019.
During the 7 days Exchange participants managed to cover quite lots of things for the Distance learning course and the entire project and its dissemination. Here are some highlights of the Youth Exchange outcomes.
For achieving the project's goals we used 2 dimension of working groups during the exchange: national and mixed groups. First of all we did a mapping exercise to find out how and where Youth Work is being done in each country?; is a Youth Worker considered to be a profession in each country?, how one could become a Youth Worker in participating countries (e.g. Taking a Training, studying at university, learning by doing, getting a diploma from the authorities, etc.); is there any Youth Work Studies course or degree provided by a university in each country and what future does Youth Work have in each local reality?
Participants drew similarities and differences of Youth Work Education practices based on the interactive map of Europe with all of the situations and realities of participating countries on Youth Work Education Pathways. The method of theatrical performances were widely used during the entire project.
We discussed the questions "Why it is important to have Youth Workers in the society", "How Education of Youth Workers leads to the Professional Recognition of Youth Work"; "Which type of Youth Work and Non-Formal Education recognition do we have in each country and how we can improve the situation".
In a short amount of time participants developed a massive action, namely Flashmob to interact local community of Kharkiv city to pay attention on Youth Work. For making this flashmob understandable for the locals, we selected Ukrainian language to deliver the message to passing by people. "Youth work: Що це? Перевір тут #InYouS !" ( Youth Work: What is it? Check #InYouS!) was the message chosen by participants.
In the framework of this Youth Exchange it was also planned a meeting with Kharkiv Youth City Council (Молодіжна рада при Харківському міському голові) and their active representatives. This was very useful for being aware on the recent changes and success of Youth field in Kharkiv Ukraine. It was important that participants became aware that such Advisory Bodies like this exists in Eastern Partnership countries, where Young people are involved in the decision making process on the matters involving youth and families.
The main learning process started with introducing the important basic steps of developing your own Youth campaigns, modeling and designing it. Participants have been given successful campaign examples to analyse and recognize the main attributes. The role of media was discussed, and participants were given simulation game to find out weak spots of youth campaign acting as media representatives.
Finally each national group started to develop their own Promo Campaign of InYouS course concretely adjusted to local reality and conditions. These Campaign action plans are important basis to implement a dissemination part of this project after the launch of InYouS course. Later on these people will be the multipliers of InYouS course on local level, as they are now aware on the basics and tools of developing and organizing Youth Work campaigns.
We are happy with the results of this Youth Exchange and are looking for the next steps of the project with our partners.