All Recommendations Quality Criteria Final

Recommendations on ensuring quality in youth projects within

Action 1 (“Youth for Europe”)

of “Youth in Action” programme – ReQa1 Created during the training course “Quality in Action”1

2010 September, Lithuania, Daugirdiškės

This document is based on participants’ reflections from their own practices. These recommendations do not aim to provide the best ever proposals or golden recipes, but rather aims to highlight important aspects and ways for ensuring various quality criteria of “Youth in Action” programme. We hope it will be useful document for beginners of international youth work as well as a reflection tool for more experienced youth workers of project leaders. The following recommendations were created by practitioners, who were asked to identify their best practices and essential success criteria in reaching quality of international youth projects.

1 The project has been funded with support from the European Commission programme “Youth in Action”. These recommendations reflect the views only of participants, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Recommendations on quality of “Youth in Action” projects. Created at TC “Quality in Action 2010

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Quality of content and methodology

Active participation of young people

We asked participants “what does indicate young people’s active involvement?”

Few answers:

Clear links between interests of young people, the topic of the project and programme of activities.

Involvement of youth group already at the phase of preparing application for funding.

Involvement of youth group in preparation phase. Young people plan activities, prepare workshops or sessions and run them (with support of youth worker if needed).

Based on former practices participants made suggestions for others and themselves how to involve participants of the project as much as possible in its all phases.

Use of creative and innovative methods, attractive and enough challenging for young people

To give a floor for the group to make their own rules and agreements about living and learning together. They also learn essentials of „participative democracy“ in this way.

Group leaders need to share/give responsibilities to the participants. When things are not controlled by one leader only. Young people should feel there is genuine wish from leaders to involve them and give them full control over things.

There should be specific time allocated for participants to express expectations for the entire project and there should some agreements how people can get involved in various phases of the project and what support they might expects from group leader or coach if there is one.

There should be a safe space for daily reflections within the group in order to review the involvement of each member of the group. Practice shows that after some time it can be done by participants themselves. It develops skills of self-reflection as well as facilitating reflection process within small group of peers.

There could be various committees or working groups created, when participants in small groups take certain responsibilities on voluntary basis during the entire programme of activities.

We are aware that at the beginning of the project participants may lack some essential skills to be actively involved. Therefore a good preparation phase is essential to empower participants to be active by developing needed skills and providing them with good tools/methods for involvement.


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How to make sure young people would be able to explore different topics on an equal basis, regardless of their language abilities or other skills?

Use of nonverbal communication (mental maps, drawings, flip charts, music etc.)

Make your topic clear to everyone, use associative symbols - as different ways of self-expression

Examples of active involvement, mentioned by participants:

World cafe, making people to be involved actively and think in different ways (Training course “Quality in Action”, Lithuania 2010)

Open Space Technology, as a tool for learning to be participative and take responsibility for one’s own learning (Personal Leadership course, Slovenia 2002/2003. Example presented by Franziska Ilse, [email protected])

Free Day organized by participants (training course in France 2003, Example presented by Roberto Maestrini)

Reflection groups by participants on daily basis (Course “Intercultural Bridge”, in Hungary 2005, Example presented by Franziska Ilse, [email protected])

Involvement of all partners during preparation (“The intercultural farm” in Italy 2008. Example presented by Roberto Maestrini, [email protected])

In case if language is a barrier, one could use craft work (Project in Belarus 2010. Example presented by Iwona Nowak, [email protected])

Good preparation before the main activity (Trainign course “Human Rights and wrongs” in Poland 2010. Example presented by Iwona Nowak, [email protected])


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Personal and social development and non-formal learning

To achieve a good learning, you need :

Safe environment so that the participants get active in the process

Pedagogical support with clear aims depending on the participant (target group, motivation, common interest)

Make reflections regularly with the participants to make them aware about the learning process (through school, they are used to formal education) and to help them understand how they can use their new competences is their daily life. Youthpass can help!

Methodology:

„Living example” as a motivation for beginners (having a former participant as best practice example)

Attractive medium/method helps to understand various content (art, sport, etc.)

Non-verbal communication can help develop trust between participants and leaders, and stimulate the reflection.

Forum theatre or semi-simulation activities can help to experience the reality of life in a simulation.

Participants learn all the time, not only during an activity so let them free time (balance activities when you design the program)

Young people get the will to propose activities themselves, so don’t make a programme that is too full, so that they can make their own proposition. They may not take responsibility if you prepare too much.


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European dimension

Reflections, examples, questions...

European dimension is close to International dimension (it’s possible to combine them).

Youth Exchanges with participants from non-EU Countries may help to compare the different models of society.

A helpful question for discussion during the project: What does EU/Europe give for us? What do we give for Europe?

Use important European Topics (topics important more than for one European country)

Each thing may have some symbolic associative European dimension. Let participants explore various objects around them and “search for Europe” and later on ask them to explore different aspects of Europe or being a European.

European dimension IN ACTION. Examples:

Role-games about European topics like: social inclusion, human rights, discrimination and racism, using COMPASS manual and its adaptations. (Roberto Maestrini from Italy, used them in some Youth Exchanges and Initiatives about social inclusion, tolerance, active citizenship. You can contact Roberto from Accademia Europea di Firenze for further information at [email protected] or visit www.aefonline.eu ).

Don’t forget that we are part of Europe. After finding problem on local level check if it isn’t problem of whole Europe or at least few countries have it also. After making this try to make project international and solve that project on international level. Also it is possible to found some countries that already solved similar problem and you can use good example of good experience. (Example from the Youth Democracy Project ‘VITAMINS’ about different methods of representing interests of young people, held in Lithuania - Latvia. More info www.vitamins.krc.lt or write to Vytautas Vaitiekaitis [email protected])

One may organise activities or discussions about European issues. Example: European enlargement or Euro in poor countries or just think about what EU gives for us and what we give for EU.(Example from the Youth exchange, held in Germany in 2008. Example presented by Bendetiktas Jonuska, [email protected] )


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My idea of bringing European aspect to young people is to create a kind of European seminar. There young people can take part in a “role play” and they can take the function of European politic/economic boards.

While working together as the EU/Europe, they have to deal with certain European aspects and problems. (Suggestion for future projects made by Anja Scheithauer from Germany, [email protected])

There are some important topics like racism and religion and these topics are international. But also specific European topics exist. Talking about things like European Parliament, €uro, etc. in connection with it, it touches our everyday life (Suggestion made for future projects by Kamil Radomski, [email protected] )

Video clip about European Dimension on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdYXyALMC5c


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Intercultural Dimension

We tried to find some methods that could increase young people awareness of different cultures and how to support them, developing their respect and understanding of their own cultures, daily-life culture as well as traditional culture.

The methods that we found are:

A. Educational games used as tools

B. Names not only nationality

C. Exchanging countries for national evenings

D. Free time activities

E. Families day/Taking part in a common ritual

F. Iceberg of culture

A. We can recommend games and sports activities as a tool because they are non-formal methods for learning even on subconscious level. They show how to respect and learn something about other cultures.

B. During exchanges it‘s really important to go over stereotypes and our idea of the culture of the other countries; everybody should start to analyse the group not by countries but person by person. This allows pointing out that every participant is different from another one.

C. Participants can learn a lot about different contries‘ cultures by taking part in national evenings of other countries (for example Italian group could prepare and present some aspects of Polish culture to the other groups, with some support of the Polish group)

D. Free time activities should be useful to create a relaxed atmosphere, stimulate cooperation and group feeling through fun and time spent together. For example, cooking together, make art together. Anja Scheithauer took part in a sort of exchange about Gospel Music and there she was able to learn different kinds of cultures, different kind of music, explore her own national music culture and interact. She could go over differences through music. Cinzia de Letis took part in the youth exchange (“Freestyle”) about music; main topic was intercultural learning through art. After few days together, they mixed their styles and their way to express themselves (for example playing music by imitating other countries‘ styles).


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E. It‘s an experience that shows common habits and daily life, giving you the chance to explore a culture from inside. It‘s something like „getting to someone else‘s shoes“

F. ICEBERG OF CULTURE is an easy way to present the impact with a new culture. It‘s a visual representation of culture, the bigger part of a different culture is hidden and a small part is outside and visible (exactly like the icebergs). It also shows how many aspects can be included in the word CULTURE. Participants don‘t have to forget to dive deeper.

Video clip about intercultural learning in international youth projects on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WJTBjitHtU

Methods and theoretical background on intercultural learning:

T-kit no. 4 “Intercultural learning” (various linguistic versions): http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int/youth-partnership/publications/T-kits/T_kits

Education pack “All different – all equal”: http://eycb.coe.int/compass/download_en.html


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Creativity and Innovation

Here are some suggestions from international youth projects organised in the past.

One may invent a story based on true happenings that would involve dialogues between participant and inhabitant of certain location. Then participants could play this scene as a performance.

Basket garbage: basketball is very popular in Lithuania, so the idea is to make basket over garbage-bin and give the opportunity throw garbage into bin. At first it might be sort of a game and later on could be transformed into some large-scale participatory action.

A house from the rubbish: there was a project to involve youngsters from big metropolis to take conscious decision about ethical living or develop critical thinking on consuming. One may re-use things to create original interior design!!!

Make outcome from project which is possible to be sold, and then to cover some spends of that certain project.

Use mural painting-street art method for a community development process involving disadvantaged youth and local communities.

In general it is tricky to give advices or recommendations on creativity. Every hint or example might also limit the infinity of choices, when it come to creating something new, which has never been implemented .


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Quality of project design

Equal partnership, trust and transparency

We recommend to develop and implement the topic together in order to assure the engagement and the equality of partners. Promoters might use opportunity called “Feasibility visit” as part of Action 4.3. When the project like youth exchange or transnational youth initiative is starting, we highly recommend to start from advance planning visit, where two people from each promoter can meet and plan a lot of details about the project. We recommend to make financial issues transparent in order to assure equality in the partnership:

the budget plan should be available for all partners

financial decisions should be taken by all partners (venue, food, program activities) and all partner work on fundraising.

For example, the organisation which applies for support puts the budget plan online so that the other partners can check on it, write ideas or suggestions.

Protection and safety of participants

We strongly recommend:

to check the legislation of the country that the project will take place in. We recommend to make an agreement with partners and participants, in order to have common point of view about emergency situations (providing medicines, etc.) and mismatches of legislation in different countries (consumption of alcohol);

to have a first aid box and at least one qualified person who can provide first aid, in order to avoid possible emergency situations;

to have a risk analysis for each activity, place (wild places, lakes, rivers, traffic, city problems…), participants (their background, special needs, problems…), in order to be aware of possible problematic situations;

to have an emergency team (sober driver), in order to be able to take care of emergency situations;

to prepare info-packs with basic information (one for participants – about weather, neighbourhoods, the host place, food, time schedule, time table of transport; and one for organizers – about participants and all their special needs, risks, contact numbers of relatives in host country).

All of this is needed in order to be able to react immediately in risky situations. More precautions could be found in “Guidelines for Good Practice on protection and safety


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of young persons” created by Irish National Agency in cooperation with other NA’s at http://www.leargas.ie/youth/publications.html

Finances and resource management more money = more quality?

We discussed also financial aspects of youth projects and its implications both on project content and quality. Participants of the course reflected their key-success stories and draw several recommendation:

to find different companies (sponsors) to co-operate with, in order to reach a comfortable financial position for supporting projects and also providing human resources, equipment, accommodation, food, etc.

to organize open markets for selling handcraft things as well as all kind of cultural events, in order to get a extra financial support for certain activities (to cover 30% of transport etc.).

to make good informational campaign, in order to convince people to give you some percent of their taxes by ensuring them that their money will be used for educational purposes.

Evaluation and follow-up

We recommend to take time to make evaluations regularly and to choose a method that will answer the questions you want to ask.There are different methods (speaking, moving, drawing...) and kind of evaluations (initial, mid-term, final). You should balance the methods according to the needs of the group.

Our suggestions:

Daily national groups evaluation with a group leader (group evaluation is useful at the beginning of the activity) in order to avoid the language barrier in order to create an atmosphere of trust. If you want to provide an anonymous evaluation, you can let the groups discuss without group leader, but the participants have to give a feed back of their discussion in a certain way (e.g. writing feedback cards or letters).

Mid-term active evaluation using different methods is good for the participants to choose the way they prefer to express. This common evaluation helps you to understand the feeling of the group and adapt. Example : the ocean of emotions with islands named according to various emotions, video box, blank paper on the wall.

Final evaluation at the end of the activity should be well structured and provide space for self-assessment in order to become aware of one’s own learning outcomes for the Youthpass, to collect information for you to write your final report, and to use for future projects.


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Quality of Project reach

Impact, multiplying effect and follow-up

We are aware there are many ways to spread your results in your communities. Here are some examples of suggestion from our experiences:

to create young European groups in schools in order to have a pool of peers who transmit there good experiences to other pupils and to the local society.

to organise events with movies or presentations from your projects in order to disseminate the results.

to communicate with the local media in order to disseminate the information about your project.

to drive through rural area in order to disseminate your information. to network with other youth associations of your region in order to exchange your

recommendations, experiences and in order to work together on future projects.

Few examples from the past:

People created “an alumni-network” of former participants in order to promote international mobility possibilities for youth.

Participants came back from an international youth exchange wanted to meet other youngsters who had a similar experience. They created network themselves and organised a follow-up project together.

Dissemination and exploitation of results

Dissemination: Each project has to reach more people than it had participants.

We recommend:

Working with local realities

During the preparatory activities all partners should get to know their local realities and get into contact with other youth associations/schools etc. in order to present the idea of the project during and after the exchange/initiative or democracy project.

All participating groups can create concrete outcomes (videos, articles, pictures, theatre plays) to promote the results in their local realities.

To create social network of people interested in the topic of the project

Involvement of families/schools

to involve participants families in the exchange (logistical and with regards to content


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and outcomes

school visits and presentations in schools

to raise money for an appropriate publication if you work an a very precise topic

to create a website about your project and promote that website

Publications, movies, presentations

participants are requested to create their own movies about the exchange

organization of a movie contest or even better in a real contest

to use existing and well-known events to disseminate the results of your project (short film festivals etc.)

public presentations e.g. in the city centre

Visibility of the project and “Youth in action” programme

Visibility: Let people know that Europe made your project possible

We recommend:

Innovative actions

you as an “outsider” of the local community take part in some local festivity (e.g. jumping in a lake/river from a bridge) and you promise to join the locals in that tradition if they shout your program slogan. Afterwards you explain to those who are interested what your project was about. You can also create a video about your activity especially the “jumping in the river” and promote it on international internet platforms e.g. youtube.com.

In general: Make an innovative movie to promote your project and to catch young people's attention.

Use of art

Visualization of your topic through artistic forms of self-expression;

While making art workshops in public places EUROPE can be more visible;

Street theatre: You organize a youth exchange about European Citizenship, Europe will be visible in the streets for everybody!

Street art: use a wall/sidewalks to promote your ideas about Europe and European citizenship (same goes for graffiti art)

You may contact Kamil and Franzi for further details by [email protected], [email protected]

Use of INFO DESKs

Activities to get in contact with local young people (activity was carried out in a


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big local open air market), participants mix with local youngsters through a medium (e.g. Painting faces, singing songs together, cooking). After this first very informal and creative contact they address the youngsters to an info-desk about the Youth in Action Program. Participants then can explain what their project has been about, what the Youth in Action program is about, how to use it and how it can support local youth initiatives or already existing groups.

Created at training course “Quality in Action”, organised by Kurybines Raiskos Centras (Lithuania) in cooperation with partners from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy and Romania. For translation or other forms of usage please contact [email protected]

Documents

All Recommendations Quality Criteria Final