Step by step participation

Here’s what I’ve learned during the Step by Step training course about youth participation:
I learned how different events for the youth can be organized. Like what to keep in mind, how to manage without a (big) budget and how to keep the youth interested. I also learned new games and techniques to either get to know the group better or how to energize it. One of my favorites were fruit salad with chairs.
I learned about how to boost youth participation / activate youngsters to participate. That can be done for example by just simple offering the youngsters the kind of activities they want to do themselves. Aka by listening the youngsters. I also learned about youth participation situations and challenges in different European countries. This was interesting and eye-opening. I learned about different kinds of youth centers. Like what they can offer, how much they can be open and who the workers can be (volunteers, youth workers and so on).
I think the 8-step ladder about levels of youth participation was very interesting and eye-opening. It made me think about youth participation in my own area more deeply. I also think that is something everyone working with youngsters should know.
I’m very happy I improved my English skills during the project or got at least more confidence to manage with it. I also loved learning new things about different cultures during the culture nights. I think it also helped with getting to know the other participants.
I’m happy about the interactions I got to face during the project. Although I wish I had started more by myself, but I’m glad to everyone who started interesting conversations with me. I was also a lot outside of my comfort zone during the project but I’m very happy how I still managed and learned. I love how individual needs were thought of during the project because I think it’s an important factor of making people feel safe.

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In this training course I’ve improved my multilingual competence by providing feedback and also interacting with the other participants. 

The other key competence I’ve improved is the Personal, social and learning. I’ve learned 3 new workshops and methodologies that I can use in my local community and the youngsters.

 One is the ladder workshop which cover the different types of youth involvement.

The second one is Activate youth. Made by Jim Collins which can assist the young people to finding their passion and can help them to find their learning path.

The third workshop is the simulation exercise “Youth in Action” which promote active participation and promote inclusion. When the dissemination is being carried a lot of similarities are found between the different countries and groups.

I’ve also improved my digital competence by using different digital tools.

We’ve used Microsoft Power Point to create presentations.

We’ve used Mentimeter to express our opinion and reflect.

We were more sustainable because we tried to reduce our paper usage by using our phone notes which helped us to reduce our paper usage.

We’ve also explored the Lithuanian culture which involved the Cultural awareness and expression key competence. We’ve learned new words and learned more about the problems we face as a Europeans and we’ve talked about how we can fight them together. 

We’ve also visited two local youth centers which gave us some sense of what the youth problems are and what actions does Lithuania take into fighting the problems. 

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Participating in this training course was a special learning experience. I gained a deeper understanding of how young people can take active roles in shaping their communities and influencing social and political change. Through interactive workshops, group discussions, and real life examples, I learned about tools and strategies for engaging in regular life and how to make my voice heard on issues that matter to me.

This experience helped me develop mostly my citizenship competence, as I now had better understand my rights and responsibilities as an active member of society had.
Working in an international team improved my multilingual and intercultural skills, and I appreciated hearing how youth activism looks in different countries. I also strengthened my personal and social competence; I think I became more confident in expressing my opinions, working collaboratively, and taking initiative.
The training motivated me to stay involved and apply what I have learned in my local community. I return home with new ideas, practical skills, and the belief that youth participation is not just possible, it’s necessary.

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This project has been very meaningful to me. When i first applied i was looking to learn more about youth topics and challenges they face with partecipation in alle their activities. From the very first day i arrived in this place and met the other teams, i felt like i had a lot to hear about their work and personal experiences about the topics and, in hindsight, i can confidently say that it happend in the best way possible. All the activities we partecipated in were very insightful, rich in informations and deep thoughts. I felt really involved in something big while partecipating and i still feel i've been part of something meaningful. I learned about how we have to act in orther to develop youth partecipation and how much important it is to do so. Were i grew up i never had any places like a youth center where i could meet up with people of my age doing activieties or just spending time toghether and when we visited the two local ones here i realized how much it would have helped me in my personal and social growth. I also learned how important is to involve youth in local community matters in order to make them develop responsability and proactivity because this is something that if you don't learn while you are young, then you are probably ignore it when you are adult. To sum up, i think this was a special experience and i'm grateful to have been a part of it.

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This project was a real discovery for me. When I first applied for this experience I wasn’t expecting it to be like that, to be 100% honest I mostly wanted to have an experience abroad and visit Lithuania. What I thought was “All experiences teach us something right?”.

With a great surprise I ended up learning a lot: about this country that was completely new for me, about youth participation, about the other countries involved and lastly about me.

The theoretical sessions were never boring but always insightful and concrete: it was great to have the chance to go deep into the obstacles some countries are facing regarding youth participation, and learning from the best practices of other countries.

For the first time in my life I visited a youth center, a safe space I would have loved to have throughout my teenage years. Something Italy would need to cope with many of the problems young people are facing.

I learned about different levels of involvement of youngsters in decision making processes and this made me think a lot about all the possibilities there could be to raise young people’s voices.

The simulation was another revelation for me. At first I thought I was too shy to share my opinion, but as the discussion started I felt the urge to express my role, that I really agreed on. This made me think that maybe I could have such a role, advocate for just cause.

Sharing this experience with the other 

participants has been a great chance to learn many inspiring things. First of all, learning about other cultures from such a close perspective is every time a huge privilege for me. Our different life paths made it possible to learn a lot from each others: for example yesterday evening when I was giving advice like I was Maria’s older sister and Eirin was doing the same to me like she was mine. 

Going deep into the great opportunities that the European Union is offering us made me feel really lucky, and made grow in me the desire of taking a concrete step in this direction, getting involved in the EU projects not only as a participant.

In the end I was right, “All experiences teach us something”, but I didn’t expect this week to teach me and make me grow this much.

I am very grateful for the amazing  opportunity I had. 

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There are many things I have learned this week. I have gained a lot of methodology for working with young people. I also learned how citizenship and youth centres operate in different countries. It was shocking for me to see the differences between countries that have a youth centre in every neighborhood and others that barely have any. Before coming here, I had no idea how youth centres work, but now I understand how they function, what people do there, and how they achieve their objectives.

It was also surprising to see that many of our countries face the same problems, even though they are far apart. I also learned about Lithuanian culture, people, and history, and thanks to Dominykas, I discovered many interesting facts about this country.

My English has improved very quickly, and I have gained a lot of confidence. During the first days, I was afraid to speak, but today I performed during a session.

I think one of the most important things I have learned is that even though our societies are very different, we have many things in common and we are almost the same.

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I have done a lot of personal growth in this training course. I noticed how sensitive to noise I am, and how loud music and lots of people talking at the same time stress me out. I know to prepare for this in the future.

I also figured out that with foreign names (and words overall) I need to see them written down so I understand how to say it. I think I will use name tags in my future projects for the first day at least!

I also very easily feel like I am left out of the conversations or groups and feel overlooked in the free time. I know this is nobody's intention and I just have to make the effort of joining in myself. But it is still a learning process.

I was happy to gain many new exercises and games to my tool pack! The 8 steps of participation, the city council debate...

It was interesting to learn about the good practices in youth work in other countries. I would have liked to focus on those more, find out more good things that work, even on a smaller scale. We talked about challenges more than the good things, and while it was interesting to notice we share similar challenges and many different ones too, it would have been better for the future work to focus on solving those challenges. One thing we barely discussed is the social media aspect. Everyone said it's an issue that young people spend a lot of time on their phones - I think we could think of digital solutions and ways to reach them (more than just Instagram ads etc.).

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First of all i learnt about the location, the cities, the culture and the history of Lithuania because before coming i knew almost nothing.

The first day i learnt a lot of games to introduce people and try to remember the names, which were amazing. 

Also i learnt about the non formal education, what is something almost new for me. I was get used to formal education like in my school.

I learnt  about youth houses too and how they work in different countries, I was surprised when some people said they don't have them in their cities. It was really nice to visit two of them and the people that works there, who were so nice and they explained us everything.

I think i also learnt about the methodology to try to involve young people in different facts of life.

This was my first project and I realised  about the possibility to participate in the hundreds of projects that there are every year and the differences between youth project or training courses. I would have loved to know about that like 12 years ago.

It was so good practice my English because It was long time that i didn't use It. Also was wonderful to meet, chat and learnt with people from different countries and different cultures during this week.

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It has really been a great week. First of all during this week with all the people i spent here i realized, which was surprising, that the people either older or younger face the same problem and challenges. We face lack of involvement of young people, lack of participation within the community. I also realized though different projects how important it is to cooperate and coordinate, to share ideas and solutions to a common goal. That was intriguing and at the same time very funny. I learnt ways to motivate youngsters in my country in order for them to be more actively involved to decision making tasks. I met a whole new country and it's beauty, its beautiful people and last but not least throughout this week i met some great people from around and I'm sure that i want to see them again!

Thanks for everything .

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I have learnt what actually means youth center. 

I have learnt how to recognize needs of youth center, what opportunities are there, how to attract youngster and keep them, what could missing and how to act accordingly to it.

I have learnt and developed public speaking, how to act, improved english skills, theather play.

I have learnt different definition of manipulations among youngsters that should be recognized and acted.

I have learnt importance of having youth center in local community and benefits of it.

I have experienced a new non-formal methods that were used during TC. 

During the visit of youth centers the impact occurred in way of serious thinking to open a new one. Better understanding of how youth centres are open or non- established yet in other countries.