ERASMUS+ KA105_2020 “Outdoor Experiential Learning – for Beginners” for youth workers and educators.
Training course for youth workers took place in Croatia in summer 2022.
About the project. There are countless researches on the power of nature to reduce stress, improve the mood, increase the creativity and promote general human well-being. Although there are few initiatives appearing that promote being in the wilderness (mostly related to adventure education), using this as a conscious educational approach is still very under-developed, particularly in the youth field. This is due to the fact that educators themselves are often not aware about the power of the approach and are not confident or lacking skills to use this in a daily work with young people.
With this training course we want to give chance for 24 youth workers, educators and youth leaders that work with young people on the daily basis to experience the power of learning in/from the nature and outdoor approach for the personal and social development and motivate them to use it more often in work with young people.
The training course will be strongly based on so called Experiential Learning approach for personal and professional development, with elements of experiencing different activities in the nature and outdoors and the added value given by observing and understanding the nature, challenging participants in the exploration of the natural environment as well as their inner personal and professional dimension. At the second half of the training participants will be expected to create own non-formal learning activities in/through the nature that could later on be implemented with young people.
Objectives:
- Exploring and building common understanding on the power of outdoor experiential learning and learning in/from the nature as an effective way for youth work – as a NFL tool for promoting personal development of youngsters, cooperation with peers, inclusion and becoming more connected to the community and surroundings.
- Providing a space for youth workers to participate in OEL activities in nature and thus allowing to experience the power of such learning and thus motivate them to use this approach for their daily youth-work.
- Equipping participants with knowledge on how to design and implement good quality OEL and learning in/from nature activities for young people and giving them the chance to develop skills on facilitating such activities.
- To develop and implement concrete follow-up activities (at least 10) applying the experience from this training course in the local youth work realities.
Our partners were:
- Udruga za razvoj zajednice "Kreaktiva" (Croatia, coordinator)
- Associazione di promozione sociale Young Effect (Italy)
- You in Europe (Greece)
- Active Cypriot Programs and European Learning Into Acceptance (Cyprus)
- VšĮ „Jaunimo Ambasadoriai“ (Lithuania)
- Iniciativu un sadarbibas apvieniba "Pagalms" (Latvia)
- Associação Novo Mundo Azul (Portugal)
- Asociatia Aspire Rise Connect Inspire (Romania)
- Fiatalok a részvételért Egyesület (Hungary)
