The upcoming events

Because of corova-virus this training is postponed probably for October!

The first training event will take place in Ommen, the Netherlands between 20-27 of April 2020

20th of April – arrival day

21st of April at 11.00 am – start of the training

26th of April at 20.00 pm – end of the training

27th of April – departure day

What is Connectivity?

Connectivity is a project that focuses on developing a method of sustainable inclusion for unemployed adults and disadvantaged groups, Creating an accessible learning frame through educational outdoor activities.

Through this project, we would like to offer a solution to this challenge by giving high-quality learning opportunities which are tailored to the needs of each individual disadvantaged adult, so that they have higher chances to enter the labor market. By creating an innovative playground and engaging people with limited formal education in the activities and work of the organizations, inclusion will be achieved and tackle unemployment.

The project brings together 7 partners from the Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Portugal and France.

The objectives of the project are the following:

• improving and extending the high-quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of each individual disadvantaged adult to enhance their key competencies;
• disseminating the project results internationally
• ensuring the step-by-step evaluation of the project through international meetings, training events and Europasses.

The outcomes regarding the participants are:

• acquiring new skills in coaching, mentoring and training;
• developing their competencies in creating and implementing educational outdoor activities;
• understanding the interconnections between formal, non-formal education and the labor market.

Output

Since one of the main purposes of the project is to support the participants’ organizations in developing their method of inclusion, by the end of the project we are going to create an interactive website as an intellectual output.

In our experience most of the books, booklets, toolkits created together with such initiatives stay unused and unknown, with no actual impact.

Therefore we are planning to create an online platform that not only shares articles, infopacks, pictures and videos regarding outdoor education, but also publishes future youth exchanges, workshops or any other events from our side and from our partners’ side in connection with this topic.

Timeline

• Connectivity is a three years long project (2019-2022).

In this period we are planning to organize three meetings with all partners in order to discuss the details and ideas regarding the project and to evaluate the progress and results.

Moreover we are planning to design four different modules (each connected to a five days training course) in order to approach this topic through a gradual structure.

Furthermore, we are going to have three other training events during the project duration, for which we don’t have the exact dates yet, but they will all take place in Ommen, the Netherlands.

The idea is, that we repeat the same training four times, this way the participants have the chance to come back, facilitate more and more, and hopefully organize the last event completely by themselves.

Our main role is to support them; to improve these trainings based on our observations and to become less and less visible… – all this in line with the project objectives.

The multiplier events and our upcoming meetings are a bit further away, so we’ll get back to them later on.

What is the training about?

. We know that all partners organizations are experienced in working with members of the target group and designing small activities for them in order to guide and include them in the organization; this time our idea is to create an exchange of good practices from each organization (what type of outdoor activities can be used for the inclusion of unemployed adults and how to shape them according to the context) with input from our side as well (12 steps of Winkelaar – how to do investigation regarding the needs of the target group, analysis, what is the purpose of the activities, creating the activities; facilitation of the activities – how to do an opening speech, how to guide the activities, how to give instructions, how to debrief the activities; how to create a follow-up for these activities so they don’t become one-time events with no impact on long term). All in all, we are planning to prepare an exchange of good practices for facilitators.

Whom are we searching for?
The number of participants from each organization is 5 people.
We are looking for actively involved staff members (or possible staff members), who do have a basic level of knowledge and experience when it comes to working with this target group and your participation is an added value for PRAXIS organization as well; since our program will focus mainly on practice (less on theoretical input) our aim is to work with a group that not only benefits from a learning opportunity but also implements these learnings within the frame of the sending organization. Therefore not only the staff members but also PRAXIS as a partner can benefit from the course and create an impact in the long-run.

Furthermore, as we shared previously, our idea is the take care of the organization and facilitation of this first activity and to pass the baton for the next time. This means, that when selecting the participants, it’s important to keep in mind that at least some of you can join the next course as well. In this way, we will always have a balance between new participants and those who did already one Connectivity training and can take over the planning and facilitation.

Although we will always be here in order to keep the frame, guide the participants and make sure that the training activities are running, we would like to step by step give the stage to our participants, so that it truly becomes their learning curve, from planning to implementation (we not only want to talk about inclusion, we want to lead by example and offer an inclusive learning frame for our participants as well). Also, these participants will support PRAXIS in creating multiplier events, developing parts of the intellectual outputs and making sure that the project is being evaluated and has an impact on local and national level.