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Into Europe 2
Start date: Sep 1, 2015, End date: Mar 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

“Into Europe” is a course for youth workers who have never done any international projects before. The course will introduce them to the benefits of international work, and give them the confidence to get involved in this. There will be 35 participants (including staff) from 9 countries (Croatia, Greece, Lithuania, Spain, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and UK). This project aims to address the issue that youth workers are often reluctant to get involved in international work. In the UK and many other European countries, international youth work is undervalued and misunderstood. Even at the best of times, it tends to lack support from policy makers; but in times of austerity, it becomes a low priority for funding and the first target of cuts. Youth workers are neither resourced, nor trained, nor encouraged to get involved in international work. They do not know how to get started; they may lack the confidence to do so, they may be too busy with day to day case work, or they may not appreciate the positive impact international experiences can have on young people. If they have not experienced this themselves, it is even harder for them to begin. One of Momentum’s aims is to increase young people’s access to international projects. We cannot do this by ourselves, and so we need to encourage more youth organisations to “go international” and get started in European projects. “Into Europe” is intended as a practical course, which will take youth workers to another country, in a very different cultural setting, and give them a first hand experience of their own. When they return home, they will have the confidence, motivation, knowledge and skills to pass on these opportunities to the young people they work with. Through Momentum and our European partners, they will also have access to support networks and partner projects (especially youth exchanges) which will be easy to manage. This will become a ladder of opportunities up to the point where they will start building their own partnerships and making their own Erasmus+ applications. The course will be organised as a "youth exchange for youth workers" based on simple intercultural learning activities. Each day’s activity will be followed by an in-depth review session so that participants can understand the methodology, benefits, risks and practical issues for every activity. There will also be an introduction to Erasmus+. At the end of the course, participants will go home with a simple action plan. Youthpass will be used as the framework to capture and validate learning, and video diaries will record personal development throughout the week. This is the second in a series of these courses, each involving a different set of countries and partners. This course will take place in Florina, Greece with a total duration of 8 days in September - October 2015. The reason for this choice of location is to ensure that participants are taken somewhere relatively unfamiliar, culturally interesting, and physically safe. This will maximise the learning opportunity. The Greek participants will be in the role of hosts, which is also vital to successful international projects (but will have the opportunity of attending a future course held in another country). The project meets the objectives of Erasmus+ by promoting the mobility of young people and youth workers and developing the capacity of youth organisations across Europe to get started in international project work, thereby delivering benefits to young people much more widely.

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