When: 16th - 21st July 2011

Where: Ecological Center Toulcuv Dvur, Prague, Czech Republic

Who: Youth and Environment Europe

Project description

The training course ‘I can lead! I can facilitate!' was projected for young people who are leaders, coordinators, youth workers in their organisations and want to improve their skills in leading projects, managing groups and especially in facilitating. 25 young people from 14 youth organisations (from Bulgaria, Montenegro, Poland, Germany, Portugal, Albania, Armenia, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, U.K. and Czech Republic) met in Prague, Czech Republic in July 2011 for 6 days to practice the skills of being a good leader and facilitator as we believe that facilitating the learning process of participants involved in the project is a key skill of a good trainer and youth worker.

The TC addressed the need of youth organisations to have competent, experienced and skilled volunteers and workers that will know well how to use the potential and energy of young people involved in the organisation. We focused especially on young people working in the field of environmental protection and non-formal education so that they could pass their knowledge in the topic well, involve in their projects many people and give the biggest possible impact to their activities.
During the training course, we tried to inspire participants to organise more projects at the local and international level (especially cooperation EU countries - neighbouring partner countries) and to promote exchange between partner organisations. We tried to initiate the exchange of experience and in this way show various points of view, methods and practices in leading and facilitating projects. TC was led by the international group of experienced trainers, facilitators and coordinators.

Objectives

• To train youth leaders in the topic of facilitating;
• To show how proper leading and facilitating is important for the result of the project;
• To develop essential skills for facilitators in non-formal education with multicultural youth groups (e.g. program design, leadership, team work, chairing and facilitating, communication, group dynamics);
• To improve the quality of youth projects on environmental topics through giving trainers, leaders the tools how to lead and facilitate;
• To improve the capacity of NGOs and train competent, skilled staff;
• To give youth leaders the inspiration for establishing and using new methods of work;
• To encourage organisations to share their knowledge at European level;
• To increase the contact between local/national organisations at international level (also EU countries - neighbouring partner countries);
• To spread good practices and methods from youth work;
• To create possibilities for new cooperation in the topic of environmental protection and youth projects.

Opinions from participants

"This training course was my first experience with YEE and I enjoyed the whole week very much. The training was interesting and often entertaining. I have already taken part in a few similar courses, still I have found a lot of new ideas. However, training was only one part of the training course. Second part, with at least the same importance, were people. It was amazing to meet young people from all over Europe, to realize that we were able to communicate and to have fun together. Each of us came from a different NGO and had different ideas about project. I really liked sharing our experiences - for me, different people are the best source of inspiration. I hope we stay in touch."
Tomas Protivinsky (Hnuti Brontosaurus, Czech Republic)

"By participating in the training course "I can lead I can Facilitate" in Prague, Czech Republic, organized by YEE team, I found myself surrounded by the most interesting, open minded and talented people giving each other the chance and opportunity to learn and exchange the best practices of leadership and facilitation.
Competent and experienced trainers, in a joyful and memorable way, inspired and motivated us to learn the new working methods and the essential skills that the leader should be equipped with. They also showed us how these two components - leadership and facilitation are interconnected and important for the successfully accomplishment of a project."
Irine Elisabedashvili (Georgia)

"I participated for the first time in YEE training "I can lead! I can facilitate!" and it was a very good experience and learning opportunity. It helped me to learn more about non-formal education in general and also about facilitating the group work in particular. For me the most interesting and challenging were practical tasks like working with a group, giving a presentation or discussing future project as I found them very useful in the end because sometimes only by doing something you can learn how to do it. I also enjoyed spending time with other participants, we had a lot of fun together and it  was very nice getting to know them better every day."
Natalya Luchko (Ecological Center Zapovedniks, Russia)

"I learned unexpectable things about myself, my abilities and opportunities concerning leading and facilitating. I hope I will be able to use all the experiences from this TC (there are sooo many...) to become better leader!"
Irena Oupicova (Hnuti Brontosaurus, Czech Republic)

"It was definetely vey useful for me. I had the chance to learn while interacting with all participants more about the strong and weak points of my character and how to use them - it was a great experience! I'm glad that I had the chance to be there with all the trainers and the other participants - the atmosphere was really friendly and somehow cooperative. Thanks for the inspiration and I think now I have greater self-confidence and hopefully a bit better understanding of how to deal with different situations and cooperate/work with different characters. I also found out that I need to further improve the way I introduce things to other people, so that they could really understand what I have in mind and I'm working now on this issue (hopefully there will be some good results :)"
Stoycho Mihov (EO Rhodope, Bulgaria)

Participating organisations

• Federation of Youth Clubs of Armenia (FYCA), Armenia
• EDEN Center, Albania
• DJN, Germany
• Stepanavan Youth Center (SYC), Armenia
• Academic Section of Polish Tourist Country-Lovers' Society (OA PTTK), Poland
• SAEM - Georgia Youth Ecomovement, Georgia
• Youth and Environment League of Prydniprovya (MELP), Ukraine
• Organizacao de Promocao de Ecoclubes (OPE), Portugal
• Hnuti Brontosaurus, Czech Republic
• Ecological Center Zapovedniks, Russia
• Look East Wild Earth (LEWE), U.K.
• EO Rhodope, Bulgaria

Financial support

The project was supported by Youth in Action Programme, the European Commission.

Photogalleries

TC 'I can lead! I can facilitate!' Photogallery

Read more

Materials from the training course - page for participants