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inFormal – integration of non-formal education approach to the formal education system for youth empowerment at local level
Start date: May 1, 2016, End date: Mar 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Historically, young people have faced social exclusion, and the recent economic downturn has prompted high unemployment,which particularly affects the younger generation. However,some disadvantaged groups of young people face exclusion in the longer term for reasons beyond the current crisis. Remaining outside the global labor market has far-reaching consequences – not solely economic. These include a loss of confidence,an undermining of trust and expectations,and an increasing risk of social exclusion and disengagement from society. Apart from the economical crisis there are other issues that affect youth and lead to political crisis. Global threats such as terroristic attacks and armed conflicts caused a huge refugee and migration wave in Europe. These and many other factors stipulate increasing of intolerance,xenophobia,violence,conflicts oriented by cultural fears,numerous stereotypes and prejudices,intercultural misunderstanding,inability to think critically and lack of intercultural competence in general. Young people are more than others affected by those issues,especially being in a situation of current economic crisis. They feel afraid, they are frustrated, they don’t know what to feel and how to react, as a result they became either inactive or join the extremist movements, and they definitely need to be supported in this hard situation by adults, by peers, by educational institution, by NGOs and by policy makers. Tackling youth unemployment,social exclusion,intercultural communication and youth participation continues to be a policy priority for European and national governments and the need to empower young people is increasingly recognized in this process. We see youth empowerment as an attitudinal,structural,and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults. In other words empowered young people will exercising power over one’s life by being skilled,critically aware,and active in creating community change. The LTTC "inFormal – integration of non-formal education approach to the formal education system for youth empowerment at local level" is an attempt to use non-formal education as a tool for youth empowerment in order to address all the mentioned issues and to build a stable and productive co-working platform for educators coming from formal education and youth field (NGOs and other youth authorities). The training will gather 35 educators from formal and youth fields coming from 12 countries.LTTC objectives:- To unite efforts of youth workers coming from formal and other youth field backgrounds for youth empowerment at local level by using non-formal education- To build a cross sectorial network and to create joined actions for addressin current challenges- To build a necessary set of competences for proficient use of NFE instruments and tools for youth empowerment at local level- To discuss the recognition of competences gained by NFE - To provide the possibility to plan, experiment and to get feedback to the NFE activities- To discuss and introduces the ways of integration of NFE activities to the system of formal education- To provide the opportunity to assess the quality of NFE activities and youth empowerment process at local levelFirst Activity aims on training participants about non-formal methods of learning and their practical use. Second the “homework” stage where participants will apply the gained information at their home countries/organizations/contexts. And finally,the last Activity aims on reflection, perfection of gained competences of participants which will lead to sustainable dissemination and follow up. This concept seems to us as the best way to really “educate” educators and to allow them to obtain new competences which they will use to improve their teaching approaches. Each Activity is planned tobe organized in different country from reasons described lower (aside of that reasons, stay in different countries will support intercultural learning element,especially when one of countries is recently heavily “demonized” by mass media). After the training course we expect our participants:to change their way of work and to make it more participative and transparent for youth; to understand the approach and principles of non-formal education and to use it for youth empowerment;to be able to use non-formal education tools during lessons, lectures, meetings, sessions, training activities they organize – giving more freedom and responsibility to learners;to be equipped with a set of other tools of youth empowerment (coaching and mentoring); o become active actors in promoting youth participation at local level. As for the methods, all of them will be non-formal,no-frontal (presentations should be done in the most participative and interactive way) and highly participative fitting different learning styles
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