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.
Training Talent Development 