Growing Together: Cultivating Reflective Practice for Inclusive and Diversity-Driven Youth Work

What to Expect: Join us in Turin, Italy, for an immersive training designed to help you reflect on and enhance your youth work activities, especially those related to inclusion and diversity. This program is specifically tailored for people who have implemented an Erasmus+ or ESC project focusing on inclusion and diversity within the past two years.

Taking the time to reflect on our practices in inclusion and diversity-sensitive youth work can significantly enhance the sustainability and impact of our initiatives. By understanding what works and what doesn’t, we can build more resilient programs that continue to empower young people. This training will offer you a much-needed pause amidst the demands of project deadlines.

Key Activities:

• Reflect on Past Projects: Identify successes and areas for improvement in your inclusive & diversity-sensitive approach.
• Explore Achievements and Gaps: Assess how inclusion and diversity were reached or where they fell short in your projects.
• Examine the Project Process: Review the entire lifecycle of your projects—from preparation and implementation to follow-up.
• Align Intentions with Reality: Reality Check: were your goals achievable?
• Develop Sustainable Peer Support Systems: Create networks that foster ongoing collaboration and support.
• Learn in a Safer Space: cultivate an environment for youth work that encourages multiple perspectives and inclusivity.

Training Methods:

Expect a blend of lightness, laughter, and meaningful exchanges that foster trust and mutual support. Rather than just networking, you will have the opportunity to build genuine connections and engage in sessions to collaboratively address challenges and enhance your practices.

We will employ non-formal educational approaches that are participant-centred and flexible. These methods promote experiential learning and active participation.

Participants:

This training is for 

• youth workers (professionals and volunteers) involved in Erasmus+ or ESC projects who have done one E+/ESC project focusing on inclusion and diversity in the last two years. 
• We welcome participants of all experience levels and diverse backgrounds. This includes, but is not limited to: lived experience of migration (including refugees), disabilities, neurodiversity, lgbtiq*, people of color, people with fewer learning opportunities, people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds etc. This training is on inclusion and diversity - that is why we hope for a diverse group of participants. Different perspectives and experiences will deepen the learning for the whole group. 
• We especially encourage deaf youth workers to apply. Funding will be available for sign language interpreters. 

Venue: The training will take place just outside Turin, Italy in a small seminar hotel. It is accessible for wheelchair users. We will be able to accommodate other special needs. After the selection process, we will get back to all the participants regarding their specific needs during the training course (1).

Duration: Residential training 02.-07.02.2025, including travel days. 4,5 working days. We will also organize an online onboarding session before the residential training

About the trainers: This training is developed and implemented by André Ebouaney (Italy) and Manina Ott (Germany).

André is a youth worker, facilitator, sign language interpreter and trainer, working in inclusion and diversity since 2017. He creates accessible spaces for different people to come together, according to their specific needs. He is passionate about learning and co-creating and loves to facilitate change.

Manina is a trainer and organisational developer with a focus on diversity and inclusion, working full-time in youth work and non-formal education for more than 10 years, with a focus on participation, empowerment and migration. In her training, she brings lots of energy and playfulness, inputs on radical diversity, and challenging questions and provides space for deep reflection and a lot of laughter.

This training course is inclusive and accessible to all. If you need to bring a personal assistant or a guide dog with you, or if you need an accessible room, sign language interpretation, or other kind of support, we will try to arrange it for you. For us to support you in your participation, we have included a question about your individual needs in the application form. Of course, this does not have any influence on your application

Being selected for this course, all costs (accommodation, travel, food, etc.) relevant to participation in the course will be covered. 

Erasmus+ Youth Programme countries

Erasmus+ Programme in the field of youth finances this project so they are no participation fee.

Travel reimbursement will be based on Erasmus+ rules for travelling.