EVONEERS’ JOURNEY TRAINING

The training relies on the capacity building of social workers to take lead and the development of methods for them to do so, equipping leaders with the necessary skills to scale up, widen the scope. This training enables the participants to develop, explore and exchange experiences in a South/North context. It provides an opportunity establishing the foundation for further cooperation within method development, between European and social leaders from the Global South.

It is the experience that the implementation of training schemes with participants from different cultural backgrounds, challenges and capacities is crucial in delivering a generic toolkit, which can be used in other places around the world. That is the purpose and the benefit. The training uses innovative and student centered and participatory pedagogical approaches, derived and inspired from a “Pattern Language Curriculum” called EVONEER’S JOURNEY. This curriculum has been completed through two EU Partnership projects and refined through experiences with projects implemented in Africa and Europe. The training will include Transformative, Experiential and Action Learning methods. These pedagogies make the educational process directly relevant to participants’ lives, focussing on the solutions to real problems that people experience as they set up projects. They educate the whole person: head, heart, hands and senses. The use of what is called „multiple intelligences“ as developed by Howard Gardner, has become a popular way of conveying a pedagogy that includes more creative ways of learning, integrating hands-on experience, theory and research, time for reflection, pitching, interactive group processes and more. Different people learn in different ways and the SIRC-LE materials and components are developed with this awareness and the training meets those needs.

The Social Innovation for Resilient Communities (SIRCle) training is grounded in innovative methodology by bringing materials and tools from ‘soft’ or people based educational processes, into the ‘hard’ or more business-based work of developing social enterprises. It will work with developing imagination, creativity, innovation, awareness of self and others, presence, and intuition while balancing such ‘right-brain’ activity with the more traditional ‘left-brain’ processes of planning, organising and structuring. This approach will be combined with the Pattern-Language curriculum and a focus on Experiential Learning Pedagogy to create a compelling, powerful, attractive and unique learning journey for change makers. This approach will open a new spectrum of follow-up opportunities to adapt and to transfer educational tools from both North/South contexts, and from the social to the economical dimension and vice-versa, thus building an increasingly more innovative and resilient knowledge community. The training dives deeper into the field of holistic business, focusses on the process of creating holistic and sustainable value, instead of merely maximizing shareholder return.

The Programme

• The training will enhance the capacity of youth workers to develop innovative educational activities and will be open and accessible to those benefiting from their organizations and projects.
• The need for skills development informs education, training and employment policies, and enables a better future in a world where new competences are emerging; and old competences are becoming obsolete.
• Partners will evaluate the training materials and refine methodologies. This training is not just about learning the details of what needs to be done, for example in ecology or technology. It is about equipping participants with social tools that enable them to realize visions through deepening a sense of community and developing supportive networks for sustainability.
• The mythology includes active learning, practical skills development and field-based learning. The project meets the need for green incubation among the youth, equipping trainers with solid methods for project development.
• The participants come into the training with social enterprise ideas to be worked and refined through the course of the training.

Specific Learning Objectives

1. CAPACITY BUILDING: Social workers and leaders acquired capacity to utilize and understand underlying challenges in their lives, projects, organizations and the world through a the pattern language curriculum and find appropriate solutions. They also have the capacity to support others in their network going through similar challenges and use the journey in their extensive work.
2. ONLINE RESOURCE FOR ALL: The existing SIRCle curriculum has been developed and adapted to the context of Social workers and leaders and in particular to Youth in Africa, created as a generic toolkit, as a free and online resource that can be adapted and contextualized to local settings.
3. NETWORKING: Participants become part of an existing network of practitioners and able to gain support from others using similar model in other parts of the world.
   THE IMPACT Participants will learn how transformational leadership and design processes can empower people to take care of their social and ecological environment more actively. They will learn how to use different methods and what their impacts could be on individual motivation, as well as on group communication, collective intelligence, community building, and sustainability. By comparing experiences from and methods used in the different countries in their specific cultural context, they will reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of their own habits and approaches. The project will enhance all participants’ understanding of theoretical concepts regarding leadership and transition, as well as their practical implications in view of both practical and political action for transition, community building and sustainable living. Participants will develop concrete approaches to marry their desire to contribute to sustainable development in their countries with their need to make a living.

Impact on participants and on target groups:

•  greater awareness about the opportunities offered by expanding markets such as sustainable communities development and sustainable social innovative businesses creation;
• empowerment of learners living in difficult situations to make them become the means of change in their communities of reference;
• formation of motivated and competent trainers able to support the change and a healthy development
  in their communities of reference, but in the long term also at national, African and European levels;
• creation of employment opportunities based on the acquisition of specific educational skills potentially
  integrable in social business contexts (training at work model) as well as in adult education
  institutions;
• greater awareness in the communities of reference about the importance of a good youth education
  system;
• creating learning opportunities for youth at local level to support the creation and the start-up of
  innovative thematic projects

Impact on relevant stakeholders:

One of the main impacts has is to show the importance of investing in training connected with sustainability promotion and holistic business approaches. The evidence assessed within the existing network of trainers and trainees shows that there is an opening of new educational markets congruent with new expanding labour sectors connected to sustainable development and eco-friendly
attitudes.

Training Programme
6 Days for 6 hrs a day (4 sessions of 1.5 hours each and 15mins break between sessions).
Thursday 09 to Tuesday 14 January 2020

Participants fees: 360,00 €