From the very beginning YOBBO saw this project as an opportunity to achieve many of its goals as an organization; mainly to increase the international network with new partners, to engage more young adults in YOBBO’s work, and to start creating an impact in the field (especially in small local realities). The idea was to reach fewer opportunity adults through the new resources and competencies gained within Connectivity.
The first real impact was visible for the people volunteering in YOBBO, those members who were taking care of the project management last year; they had the occasion to learn a lot and to improve many different skills: arranging a small event like the kick-off meeting, exchanging information with the international partners and learning how the project administration works.
Moreover, thanks to the first training meeting an even bigger impact has been created since the participants selected for this event were coming from small realities and were active in the field of adult education (active especially within our organization). It was a great occasion for them to improve their knowledge during the training and for YOBBO to include more adults in the organization’s “life”. In this way, the first Connectivity training meeting turned out to be an exchange of good practices about adult education between the participants and a great opportunity for YOBBO to include these learnings and methods by being more active in the field.
With these new possibilities and new resources, we could move in two different directions. On one side the participants could gain many different skills to use in their jobs and in their work with adults; on the other side, YOBBO could cooperate with them while organizing events in the field for the same target group.
It is great to see how, thanks to this project, YOBBO has now the means to create a real impact for people coming from small and disadvantaged realities and it is great to see how the first Connectivity training meeting could create such an engagement for the participants. More specifically, the next step will be to use the knowledge gained in the last year and in the last meeting to engage more and more adults through activities and events co-created by YOBBO and the Connectivity participants, with keeping the goal of raising awareness on non-formal education opportunities and working on all those skills that can give to this target group more possibilities and can increase their employability.
How do we create impact in the long run? What are the tips and tricks that we would like to share?
Keep reading and find out more…
Increasing the inclusion and growth of young adults and adults – this is a priority for YOBBO and the reason why the organization was born.
The organization was founded by Shata Diallo, a young adult, with the intention of creating for youngsters coming from closed and disadvantaged realities the possibility to experience multiculturalism. The organization found its mission in involving youngsters and young adults in exchanges and training programs on an international level, aiming to promote not only inclusion but also opportunities to gain new competencies and skills.
YOBBO found great support, for the participants, in the outdoor methodology; this took a relevant part in their experience and for sure became an enriching tool, a common point for the young adults that now are active in the organization’s life.
Each of the team members who joined the Connectivity project found in the outdoor activities a relevant experience in their route to join the organization. This is the reason why this represents, for YOBBO, a great occasion to learn and implement new outdoor methodologies and activities both with the team members and with all the participants.
Each one of the members starts from a different background, a different approach, and experience with outdoor activities; for this reason, working on the methodology and exploring how to tailor it for adults and young adults can enrich each member and have a concrete and relevant impact on the local network created outside and inside the project.
That being said, the next lines will be personal testimonials of the key members involved in the Connectivity project, from YOBBO. The purpose is to show how different the background of the people involved is and how the outdoor is, indeed, a common methodology to develop new competencies on personal and professional levels, tailoring it depending on the background and the learning goals of each member.
Pasquale
My name is Pasquale Larocca, I come from a small village in the south of Italy and I am currently involved in YOBBO in the role of vice president and project coordinator. I was lucky enough to first experience outdoor activities when I was young, in the village scout group; it was this first experience that had an impact on my future choices and on my involvement in international projects with YOBBO.
Thanks to this first experience I could start to understand how beneficial it could be to do things like walking outside and playing games with my friends in a forest. As well, I decided to follow two paths, one with my scout group and one with YOBBO; firstly, to gain new skills and competencies and, after a few years, to give the possibility to other young adults and adults to experience the same. To achieve this, I started to participate in training programs and events to become a scout leader for the new people joining the group in my village and to participate in international projects like training courses and exchanges (most of them were full of outdoor activities, small ones or longer ones depending on the project). Living all these new experiences motivated me a lot in joining YOBBO, it was a great occasion for me to travel and experience more and more, and also to grow as a trainer and facilitator. Thanks to this involvement in the organization, I could also reach many young adults coming from all over Italy, from small or disadvantaged contexts, and involve them in international projects with outdoor experiences.
Currently, I am a scout leader and I am active in YOBBO; my goal is to involve as many young adults as possible and to use my competencies and my experiences to create a context of inclusion for people coming from disadvantaged realities. To achieve this mission, I am using a lot of outdoor activities: since I experienced it a lot in the past years, I truly believe that an outdoor context and an activity specifically designed for it can create a powerful occasion to grow, personally and professionally. In addition to this, I also experienced how activities can be heterogeneous; you can experience a simple and short activity or a more difficult and longer one.
Looking back at all the outdoor activities I could participate in and facilitate; I find it really interesting how those can be used both to promote inclusion and cooperation but also how these activities can contribute to giving new skills and competencies to a target group with no such opportunities. With this idea in my head, becoming the project manager in Connectivity, with YOBBO, represented a great opportunity to dive more into the outdoor topic used as a tool to increase the number of opportunities for adults and young adults coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Mainly, the inclusion of this target group, aimed at increasing skills, in YOBBO, starts with the involvement of the participant in international projects and, eventually, through the active participation in the organization’s life, as it was for me when I started. Connectivity, indeed, opens new opportunities for the young adults already involved in the organization and for the ones who will be involved in the future: learning how to manage a project as an associated partner is already an opportunity itself; indeed, this project represents a bigger opportunity for two main reasons:
- opportunity to expand the network on the territory and involve more people from the target group, through events and active participation in the organization’s life;
- possibility to increase the competencies of the young adults involved in the project and in the organization’s life, thanks to new activities and different approaches to the target group coming from many different organizations working with a great variety of people and backgrounds.
Elettra
I am Elettra Costa and I am a clinical psychologist passionate about outdoor training programs.
I am trained in the field of experiential learning, through international trainings and experiences within the Erasmus+ program, specializing in the management of group dynamics through the facilitation of communication and cooperation processes.
The work at the A.S.D. Kamaleonte allowed me to touch the potential of outdoor education first-hand, as well as carry out experimental Adventure Therapy projects in collaboration with the Israeli organization Free Spirit. Adventure Therapy is part of a specific field of outdoor training in which outdoor techniques take on not only a growth and development value but also a key role within a therapeutic path specifically designed and directed by professionals in the sector.
From the meeting of these skills, in collaboration with Kamaleonte, various projects are born aimed at the growth, well-being, and development of adults, young people, and children using eco-sports and outdoor experiences.
Characteristic elements of all interventions are the use of natural settings as a privileged context of intervention, work on metaphorical experience to stimulate reflective processes of self-awareness, group focus, and managed risk.
The natural environment, therefore outdoor, is considered a privileged experiential situation that allows you to access the sensory, intuitive, and emotional component of learning with greater immediacy. Nature, therefore, becomes, in this type of intervention, a co-facilitator of change. The group element is another central and critical aspect of these intervention projects: the group represents a very powerful psycho-physical-emotional container if perceived as safe since it provides support, and feedback and creates a powerful interpersonal context. The work on the metaphor has the task of building connections and associations between experiential activities and learning objectives. All interventions intentionally make use of the right activation state through the so-called managed risk. The sense of challenge and eustress are powerful engines that motivate change, placing the participant in the challenge zone.
The objectives of the interventions are the development and strengthening of specific target skills in the trainees: effective communication and feedback, problem-solving and solution orientation, cooperation and team building, and social entrepreneurship. All are aimed at increasing a good awareness of oneself and of the personal resources to draw on to achieve one’s life goals and to face the obvious difficulties of the world of work.
Participating in the Connectivity project is the natural consequence of my studies and experiences. It gave me the chance to explore what I have learned until now in an international context. Besides, this project is an opportunity for me and my organization – YOBBO – to increase our skills and competencies, to increase our network and our team. Sharing best practices with others who have different experiences is a great chance to learn how to manage such a project in an intercultural context, keeping an eye on a wider future perspective. The different backgrounds to deal with are challenging and good opportunities to put ourselves as firsts out of our comfort zone.
Fiorentina
I’m Fiorentina Mercaldo, a set designer and theatrical student, interested in outdoor training experiences.
I trained mainly in contexts related to theatre and theatrical pedagogy, I also took part in numerous projects and youth exchanges within the Erasmus+ project, so I approached non-formal education and outdoor projects, approaching and discovering new forms of communication and the strength of teamwork.
After numerous experiences of youth exchanges, I decided in 2015 to found, together with Shata Diallo, YOBBO, of which I am currently a member collaborating in the organizational part.
I started to get interested in outdoor training during an exchange where for the first time I faced the experience of a three-day traveling outdoor trip. We were divided into mixed groups and traveled by bicycle, we did not have our smartphones but only an old model cell phone, every day was a task to complete and we had to find a way to be hosted for the night or find a place to sleep or we simply had to organize ourselves to earn money or do the shopping. The experience had a strong emotional impact but above all, it gave each of us the opportunity to experience the strength of teamwork in moments of great tension. I think I can define it as one of the most formative experiences of my life that gave me the opportunity to become the woman I am, face difficulties, stress, happy moments, jokes, and work with people who until the moment before were almost unknown and understand how joining forces you can get great results, it is rewarding and makes you grow. This has led me to deepen more and more the dynamics of teamwork and outdoor training. In the Connectivity project, my role, together with one of the other young people, is to maintain relationships and communications with the other organizations involved and to fulfill the creation of the various outputs.
I decided to take part in Connectivity above all because I felt the need for a greater commitment and personal responsibility. I had an interest in trying out the creative and organizational aspects. Above all, I felt a personal need to approach the creation of a project that could give me the opportunity to know the different points of view and approaches of individual organizations and cultures. Thus, helping me in my growth as a person and as a professional.
My future goal is to learn as best as possible many of the methodologies of non-formal education and outdoor training. In this way, being able to increasingly contribute to the creation and design of new projects with YOBBO and to conceive and plan a training course. Outdoor aimed at theatrical pedagogy and the training of show business workers according to an “intermediary” approach to artistic work and no more “interspecificity”.
Ester
– The days that changed me –
If I should describe my life with a word, that would be ‘change’. Since I was born, the place I call home, the people close to me, and I have been constantly changing. As I write I live in the Netherlands where I study International Business. Here, I have done my very first outdoor which was something completely unexpected. I applied for that training course literally a week earlier. I still remember my skepticism while fulfilling the application. It was completely a jump into the blue. But life taught me the best things happen when we face the unknown. So I did, and today, I am extremely grateful for that. During those ten days, I met some of the most important people in my life. They soon became stable landmarks to me, and even now, after almost three years, they still are.
The training was organized by a Hungarian organization and the way the activities were organized and the visible effort those trainers had put into them blew my mind. I have grown and learned about myself, my patterns, and my thoughts more in those ten days than in the previous three years. I was still sixteen back then, I turned seventeen just the day after that training ended when I was flying back home. Even though I had begun considering that place home and those people a family.
As I said at the beginning, the outdoor part was a complete surprise for me. On the evening of the fourth day, the organizers told us, participants, to pack the clothes we considered strictly necessary for an adventure of three days and two nights.
I remember how the first feeling to spread in the house was fear and surprise. No one was expecting that. We were then collected all together in the same room to choose the four group leaders for the outdoor. The bravest volunteered, and I was not one of them. But then the organizers made them walk out of the room and said to us remaining to find four leaders. Four others came out and had to leave, again. So, the last ones remained, the ones more afraid to call themself leaders, ended up being them. And I was one of them. Since that day, I have not let anyone or anything make me blind to all the possible things I can do and experiences I can live.
Biking in the Dutch countryside, with people, met just some hours before, I realized for the very first time, how little we really need. I was sitting on a bike, with just a T-shirt and hoodie in my backpack and a tent, but I was feeling alive, as everything was in place and nothing was missing.
Finding a house or food in those days was not easy. We were constantly talking to strangers, telling them our stories, and trying to create contact with them. I still remember, the first night, my team and I slept on the living room floor in the house of a girl we started talking to while she was cuddling a cat in the street. And the second night, we decided to go back to Ommen and camp near the river next to the training house. When we arrived, we found out that the other two groups made the same decision. The same joy you feel when meeting an old friend, I felt it meeting those people again.
On the final evening of that project, we were given four matches each and we were asked to give them to four different people who inspired us during those days. I received nine that night out of fifteen people in the training. Receiving so many of them, made me cry. And those were not tears of sadness, but tears caused by understanding how much you can do, by the gratitude to be surrounded by people who make you feel worthy.
Nowadays, each one of those people lives in a different European nation. But besides the thousands of kilometers between each of us, lasting forever will be the memories we share and the teachings those days left us with.
Exactly a month after that training I discovered YOBBO. Seeing the passion and effort Shata and Pasquale were putting into it, inspired me to be part of something bigger than me, something creating a concrete impact in people’s lives. So I decided to join this family. In the beginning, I did not know where this choice would have led me, but today, after two years, I realized how YOBBO showed me the easiness and beauty of stepping into the unknown. This is also why I decided to embrace Connectivity. It is again an opportunity new to me but I am sure this will widen my horizons even further and enrich me with memorable stories, memories, and teachings.