Day 5: Youth unemployment in Europe, a transnational challenge.

Fifth day. Mapping  youth unemployment @ tdtc#2014

In the fifth awesome day, we constructed step by step the map of the youth unemployment in Europa starting with an original reflection exercise: where do we place ourselves and the other countries on the European unemployment map and after that, we compare it with the realities and we had a REAL surprise to see the EU statistics for 2013.

What  is always hidden between and beyond numbers that I like to call „cultural context” (national and European, in this case): human beings and the culture they inherited & will also leave as legacy for those to come, adding their efforts and creativity. But, when it comes to statistics, I remember the way the Romanian poet  Nichita Stănescu starting to count in “Another kind of mathematics”: “A hard one and a soft one is a hard one and a soft one or a camel”!

Sharing the information for all 12 countries created a more clear image of the causes of youth unemployment, of the role of the youth workers in trying to solve this issues and how they can really succeed. And as all started with a question, we manage to have a real map at the end of the day with this inquiry procedure.

What are the factors of youth unemployment in your country? Great question! We work in groups of very different countries. The group I’ve been part of was formed by Romania, The Netherlands, Germany and Hungary. We reflect upon the lack of vocational development or job counseling in the educational system that leads somehow to the fact that the majority of the youngsters choose „hot” domains where they can earn more money: IT, law, and economics. After graduated, they realize that the market offer is limited and the job makers for higher income as they dream about are not so many. There are few opportunities for internships in Eastern part of Europe; from this point a view, in Germany, the system has created “the generation internship”, so in order to get a job you need an internship. Within the public sector, there is less posibility for the youngsters to change things, those who apply for a job ihere know that the risk of loosing it is very low. What  is really missing in the Eastern European countries is the development of the entrepreneurship culture.

What are the transnational effects of youth unemployment? Many youngsters go to work abroad for a better life, for a better education and to help their families and they really succed. In Romania, the economy of our country was better with the support of the money that the Romanians send to their families for many years. But this is the beautiful part of the immigration phenomenon, because, in Spain, the huge number of immigrants is one of factors that raised the rate of the unemployment. Some of the young people who decide to work abroad abandoned their children. This documentary says everything, as the Romanian movie „Home alone” shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ8pBfNlXQk

There are some good things the young people can change through their technological skills, the refreshment of the system they bring, the transparency they ask for in the working process. The young workers can lobby these ideas; they can play the role of the ambassadors, being voices in the national Parliament and in European Parliament. They should change the attitude of the youngsters, empowering them, giving them the tools to think autonomously, to create a system of learning internship and to promote active citizenship, to make them political aware, to connect them with professionals. In the same time, it is important to work on inter-generational issues by creating openness for the young people to meet, share and learn together with older people. As I pointed out yesterday, if we learn from each other we achieve more!

The future perspectives have to do with the influence that youth workers can have upon the unemployment situation, how to better it and how the labor market may change through talent development approach and programs that are connecting the dots of the map, how my colleague Violeta Şerbu from Romania mentioned, there is a middle structure between the main stream structures of the society and the individuals and we, the middle structure, could be the force that the society needs to change.

The great lesson I learnt today is that behind statistics there is a world, a national vision and a specific system that works better or worst with its own challenges and it is also an European one, because of the work mobility and the value we share; that a country may look good from outside and be in top ten of the greatest, but that doesn’t mean its people are doing well. Sometimes it is hard to carry fire in one hand and water in the other.

Take care of ….your diversity! Gabriela, Romania

 

 

Day 6: Erasmus+

We started the sixth day @TDTC2014 by exploring the martial art of Thai Chi Chih and its call for Discipline yourself to practice.

Then moved to our new training location… with a Plus of perspective 🙂

All day was about Erasmus… with-a-Plus, and the overview on the whole training experience we lived during these days. We explored the What, the How and the Why behind the European program, Q&A-ed, and started conversations to put future projects into beautiful partnerships. We finished the last training day with a tasteful Pizza of Evaluation Dots and an overwhelming bath of positive feedback from each other. Looking back at the 7 days, we all felt it as…..

 

 

So, we are now preparing to leave Erasmus from Rotterdam behind, geographically speaking… 🙂 with his quote in mind… There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. Hence, we may think that, in fact, all of us, the participants from #TCTD2014 altogether, are the ones pushing things further to sustain the youth workers making change possible all over Europe…
…with feet on the ground but our heads high in the clouds…
Violeta Serbu, Romania

 

Day 4, reflection and structuring

On our fourth day of seminar, we had the chance to start structuring our thoughts and making concrete action plans from the inspirations and ideas that we’ve created during the workshops, discussions and visits, and to start connecting them with the work we do in our own communities. We had a busy day of reflection, passionate discussions and tackling our local challenges.

In the morning session we took a look back and shared our insights, experiences and expectation of the visit to Eindhoven. It was inspiring to talk and reflect about our feelings, share our highlights and to start planning on how we could implement the things we experienced to our local organisations and communities. The unanimous conclusion seemed to be, that we can inspire the young people we work with to bring a pay back into our own communities. As a conclusion of the morning session the most enthusiastic groups even managed to create an idea and network for an international project in this short amount of time. That’s what I call motivation!

In the afternoon we did a learning café inspired workshop mapping perspectives of Talent Development in our work. By discussing the profiles, needs and motivations of Talent Development in relation to the stakeholders, resources, work practices, personal and professional motivation and the youth we all work with we created a common ground and guidelines to follow and managed to get a closer idea of the local challenges we face in implementing Talent development.

As a follow up for the afternoon session we learned a model for analysis and decision making and got to start to ponder the challenges we face in our work and oganisation trough a positive perspective. The Appreciative inquiry model we used originates from company modeling and development, creating steps to discover ones strengths, long term dreams, realistic plans and near future first steps to take to reach ones goals.

In the evening we were offered the chance to see an example of youth talent and it’s affects in the community through the eyes of young slam poets. We watched the award-winning documentary Louder Than A Bomb, that tells a story of young people finding their voice in the society, about passion and a community of trust. Tomorrow is going to bring yet another dimension to our journey together as we start making future plans and exploring the possibilities that Erasmus+ programme has to offer. These kinds of days remind me that it’s really great to be a part of the European Youth Work family!

 

Riikka Pulju, Finnish participant

 

Day 1 Startup teambuilding activity

Heidi Elo, a youthworker from Finland works in a employability section with youngsters. They develop all kinds of games, one of them got quite popular it is called UFO Catcher. We had the privilige to play it as a teambuilding activity on the first day.

Here is the description of how they work from Heidi.

Ufo catcher was created in a Finnish youngsters wood workshop in Lieto. The materials being used are all recycled for example old bed legs and so on. The youngsters have done the game during their intership in the workshop, where they can develop their skills in an non-formal way in the field of their interest. There are also work coaches that teach the youngsters the working methods and individual coaches to support them in the life quality management skills. Youngsters can be creative and get work experience all at the same time.

Heidi thank you very much for sharing it with us!

Day 3, Do some business with your talent.

As a youth worker, by visiting other countries, one realizes that things may go a step or more steps higher. It may take some years to have visible results and to spread them to the entire world, but it is worthy and amazing!

So, on the third day of the training course, we saw three successful projects – Dynamo, (PSV) Mensfort United and Robin Hood projects – that have something in common: the youngsters are free to practice what they really like, gain money and /or change the environment with one single condition: to discover and develop their talent. That’s really awesome!

The first stop was The Wall of fame in Eindhoven, a legal place for graffiti where the greatest graffiti artist of the entire world is coming here every year, joining the young artists to share their work, feelings, dreams and experiences. It is a real exhibition I invite you to see, a performing of the now-and-here-moment. In June, The fifth edition of the International Step into Arena Festival will take place. So, meet you there!

You can’t visit Eindhoven without visiting DYNAMO and, why not, volunteering! It is a huge and multifunctional center, the biggest in Europe, where young people are building their future, developing and performing their talents, organizing their activities. It is visited by 90.000 persons every year and 2000 comes there every week. You can always find young people in Dynamo. At the beginning they are volunteers for the others and than they create their own workshops and earn money.
I personal find extremely useful the idea that if you really want something, you need to make an effort and, in the same time, there is a the pay-back form, that is not do ut des system, it is more an organic and natural circuit of good will and sense of responsibility.

At Dynamo, you can develop any kind of talent, from urban dance till metal music, from fitness to pole dancing, from gymnastic to wrestling, basketball, video production and so on. You can participate in workshops or you can just hang-out with your friends.

We participated in two of these kinds of classes: one of popping dance and the other of light graffiti, discovering movements that we hardly knew our body can do and that our camera can be use for light graffiti with making little changes (the Bulb mode and fixing ISO the lowest possible). Amazing!

(PSV) Mensfort United is also an unforgettable experience, a coaching project for kids of 11-12 years old, boys and girls that have just switched to secondary school and have the tendency to become dominant on the playground.
So, they sign a contract about how to behave to each other, how to cooperate, to respect, fair-play, to do good things for their neighborhoods (reciprocity and pay-back), and all is under the umbrella of the great metaphor of playing soccer. The trainers work with them the part of motivation (meeting with professional soccer players, training on the same field that their heroes play and organizing competitions) and discipline, teach them to play respecting the others and behave; they keep in touch with the school in order to see the evolution and with parents in order to find their needs. It is a complete education, as long as the parents are also involved when it comes to health of the children and the food theme.

The third big project that we have visited is Robin Hood! Nice name for a project with four restaurants, located in not developed neighborhoods through volunteering and talent development. Through these restaurants, the whole image of the neighborhood has been changed, after many years of developing this project. So, in order to help the new entrepreneurship in this area, the rent is lower.
It started with taking an attitude, with the willing to change a problematic area into a neighborhood enterprise and this influenced also the educational system, so the kids from the school became the most talented from the city.

Great news of how talent development does really help the unemployed youngsters through focusing on local realities and, in the same time, creating a model for the entire world.

Thank you, Eva Van Gorcum and John Verhees for this awesome day!

Gabriela Toma, Romanian participant.

 

Day 2, lectures and practical inspiration

The second day of our Talent development training course, in my belief reached everyone’s expectations and included much more enthusiasm, entertainment and productivity! 

The day focussed on talks from both Yvonne van Sark of Young Works and Sebatian Abdallah of lectoraat Youth Spot, which followed by an evening workshop led out by our Portuguese collegues from Transformers. The day started out beautifully- with beautiful weather, beautiful people and a beautiful program for today. To get our energy off too a high start we began with some outdoor games in which we had to guard our egg! A lot of running and M&M’s were eat wich was off course a good start off the day. Once our energy was up the real work started in which we sat in two’s and described what talent development actually is. A lot of debate occured as a result under the topic ‘nature versus nurture’ and whether talent was something you were born with or whether it was nurtured in your environment.

The discussion we had were enlightend by our first speaker Yvonne who presented on the topic of “how to help discover and fullfill young people’s talent”. Here she highlighed that talent was indeed a gift from nature but this is only the beginning. What a big learning proces was the tools she gave us as youthworkers to develop these talents and change a young persons mindset from a fixed to a growth mindset, in wich the young person is motivated to develop their talents rather then too believe that they cannot do it, or avoid the challenge in case they fail.

For Yvonne the key too change is the way we as youth workers interact with young people and the way we encourage them. One of the key words of the day was the word “yet” For this she believed it was important too provide feedback and gentle encouragement in which a young person said they cannot do something we should insert the word yet. This encourages young people but does not put pressure on them too succeed but rather too discover their talent.

After a light lunch we followed a more theoretical lecture by Sebastian on the topic of “succes experience of disadvantage young people in Amsterdam and Beirut” Here Sebastian gave us an overview of the dimensions of succes experienced by young people, and how young people sometimes experience the wrong way of feeling good. He discussed the importance of balancing both elevation and grounding in which young people through talent development can be elevated over their circumstances (particulary regarding young people with fewer opportunities) and still be grounded in which they belong somewhere. By achieving this they can achieve their talents much more as they are owning the moment and reaching their goals they want too achieve, but also being able too keep their sense of identity and community. He followed this information with practical knowledge from both Amsterdam and Beirut which gave us great tools too implement this in our own work. 

The day ended with a workshop provided by Transformers. Both Rafaela and Ricardo gave us great insight in the wonderful work they do in also the practical application in how they achieve to provide so many young people to develop their talents in the area’s of graffiti, dance, music and other areas of talent development. This is done through a mentor initiative in wihch young people learn these talents through volunteers and other young people. What was amazing with this was the community contribution that young people do within their organisation and the impacts they have in Transforming their society.

Overall it was an amazing second day, we are all looking forward to what’s in store tomorrow when we visit several inspiring projects in Eindhoven.

Carmel Walsh, Irish participant. 

 

33 youthworkers from 12 European countries@ Conferentiecentrum De Glind

Kicking off a training of 6 days is always a step in the unknown. Getting to know each other, stimulating a real good group dynamic in which people feel like sharing and learning from each other. The first day of an European training course is mostly dedicated to building the group. And a day like today, with sunshine and summer temperature surely contributed to a good group vibe. So the first stereotype was cracked today, it doesn’t only rain in The Netherlands, that’s one thing that our youth workers from Ireland, United Kingdom, Finland, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary found out.

Getting to know each other, working together, sharing thoughts about the concept of talent development, a lot of information was shared between the youth workers. The most inspirational workshop of the day was, if you ask me, “the timeline of talents”. Every one of us shared 1 of their most important and determining talents. And it was so amazing to find out that for most of us this talent lead somehow to a career as youth worker. And at the same time the motivation to further develop these talents was the notion that these talents have an added value for society

As a good example of talent development 2 great young media makers of Massa (Utrecht) were present today. This week they will film one young peer educator, a youth worker and an organisation that works on large scale with Erasmus+ opportunities. We can’t wait to share this footage with you.

Today @trainings day 2 we are eagerly waiting for a guest lecture of Yvonne van Sark of Young Works and Sebastian Abdallah of Lectoraat Youth Spot.

Maartje Bulthuis, trainersteam

For more pictures please go to: https://www.dropbox.com/sc/12igl2p2w32v452/AACM3KLUMt5Hd7amAJHolURSa

Working and preparing.

We would love to share with you how hard we are working to make this awesome training course happen. Just a quick clip to show our hard work! We can’t wait to meet our international collegeau’s! Just a few hours left.
Stresslevel is rising up just as our excitement and energy!