While we are planning the upcoming steps, our participants are busy sharing the results of our first meeting and brainstorming about further activities and ways of implementation.
Tag: partners
Today all the organizations from the “Connectivity” crew could meet again. It was a great meeting where we could program the next steps for the project.
We are enthusiastic and happy about all that is going to come and about the future of the project!
Stay tuned for more info. 😉
Olde Vechte Foundation, YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders, Active Bulgarian Society, Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France, Praxis Greece, Europe House Slavonski Brod, Rota Jovem.
Funded by Erasmusplus-NL.
“[…] it was a unique experience and approach. The difference was that we developed outdoor activities using non-formal education as a tool and at the same time experienced it. What do I mean? From the point that we all had a common knowledge about terms as a base, we started to experience the whole process. From the investigation of learning the needs of our target group to actually facilitate and be the trainer. In that way, the Connectivity project gave us a unique opportunity to practice our methods, develop new ones, and exchange practices among us. I can’t wait for the next meeting, go a step further and start working again as a team.”
Read more about the experience of our Greek team. 🖇
http://bit.ly/PraxisExperience
Meet our Portuguese group from Rota Jovem! For sure we will see more of them in the future… 😏
Read more on their page.
We are still here, inspired, and ready to work with you!
Since meeting in person is rather difficult at the moment, we decided to create an online learning opportunity for you. 🌍💻
Are you curious about our project? Would you like to develop your facilitation skills in an outdoor context? Would you like to practice creating and leading educational outdoor activities? Then this might be for you.
In order to keep on creating content and exchanging ideas (as a warm-up for our future training activities), we offer you the following: join us in the upcoming months and discover the basics of facilitation through exclusive videos, tailor-made online content, outdoor games and activities, workshops in small international teams and support group meetings.
This is all free of charge and it only requires your wish to learn and to explore something new!
Would you like to know more? Are you ready to sign up?
Then reach out to one of our partners.
This project is co-created by Olde Vechte Foundation, Rota Jovem, Active Bulgarian Society, Europe House Slavonski Brod, Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France, Praxis Greece, and YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders.
Funded by Erasmusplus-NL.
One of YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders‘s favorite outdoor activities is the so-called “Spider web”.
What is it about? And how to do it?
The best is to create groups of 6 to 10 people.
In order to arrange this activity, you are going to need space with poles or trees and rope – using the rope you can create a web between 4 poles or trees, make sure that the holes that have formed in the web are less than the number of team members.
Rules to consider: the goal of each team is to reach the other side of the web, the activity will be over when all team members reach the other side. The participants are not allowed to touch the rope or the poles/trees (if that happens the whole team has to start again from the beginning). Only one person can stand in one hole of the web. If a person who is standing in one hole moves to another one, the previous one is “burned” (the team can’t use it again unless they start from the beginning).
We really like this activity because it’s so simple yet so powerful. To reach the goal, the team has to cooperate and to find a solution that includes all members. Cooperation is not the only aspect of this activity. In teams, our participants need to communicate with each other in order to come up with a winning strategy. Moreover this activity can be focused on inclusion, solving it takes a group effort.
We believe in the effectiveness of this activity since after the participants reach the final goal and understand the solution, all together, they have the possibility to prepare it again and facilitate it for another group; so there is an experience in the activity and, at the same time, a learning possibility while facilitating it. In this context the inclusion is created not only during the activity but also in the preparation of it by a group who already found the solution and learned how it works while doing it.
Getting down to something new!
While in many ways we are on hold, the given situation has also some benefits. For the last few weeks, Olde Vechte Foundation has been busy trying to figure out new possibilities within the restrictions and as a result, an adjusted system has been developed for all volunteering activities.
Being outside as much as possible and keeping distance from others – these are the guidelines and gardening seems to fit just right in. Spinach, onion, dill, beets, arugula, and parsley is growing soon, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin, paprika, and beans will be added later to our homemade vegetable garden. Can’t wait to taste these own grown vegetables! 🍅🥬🥒🍆
This is how an outdoor activity can turn into a learning process and a benefit for everyone around.
Would you like to follow the work of our volunteers?
Then check out our page, Vrijwilligers werk vechtdal.
Europe House Slavonski Brod (EHSB) is a non-governmental organization established in September 1998 in order to promote European and global integration processes and to support the cultural, political, and economic integration of Croatia into the European Union. One of its main goals is to promote and develop European interdependence and cooperation, human rights, environmental protection, as well as natural and cultural heritage. Our activities are focused on the integration of young people from rural areas, young people with different cultural, national, and religious backgrounds. We stimulate this through training events, workshops, individual support, international exchanges, and projects. We work both with adults and youngsters.
While implementing our own and our partners’ activities, we promote personal and social development and create a feeling of personal responsibility for peace, human rights, environmental protection, natural and cultural heritage. This is also the reason why we became part of Connectivity. We support initiatives and projects that strengthen non-formal education through outdoor activities, civic cohesion, and active citizenship on local levels… this is what Connectivity is all about.
Praxis Greece is a youth non-governmental organization in Serres, in North Greece which has activities in youth policy, media, migration and human rights fields. Founded in 1995 in order to offer a broad spectrum of activities to support the development and empowerment of the Greek civil society.
Praxis stands for developing youth participation at local level, with the purpose of fostering the potential of young people to be active citizens and actors of real social change in their local communities, as well as in their regional and international realities. We provide capacity building for young people for personal and social development using non-formal education methods.
The working methods are primarily based on the active participation and learning of participants promoted through non-formal and informal activities.
We are active players in the field of youth exchanges, seminars and trainings of young people, providing opportunities to discover a new cultural and social environment, improve understanding of a different way of life, develop the spirit of cooperation and skills.
We chose Connectivity because we provide valuable support to young people in implementing their ideas, projects and activities, encouraging all young people to participate in trainings and exchanges of experience. Furthermore, the staff members of Praxis constantly develop themselves and their professional skills in order to contribute with their experience and qualifications to the projects they implement and initiatives they take. This is further enhanced by cooperation meetings, exchanges of best practices, and being continuously informed about youth activities at a European level.
Creating an informal learning frame and empowering young people is on top of our list.
One of our associated partners, Cherry International Foundation, is doing an incredible work when it comes to creating tailor-made educational outdoor activities. 🚴♂️
Follow them and see how they do it!
Rota Jovem is a non-profit youth association based in Cascais, which has been promoting and supporting activities for young people since 1992, with over 27 years of existence!
The secret of the association is being an open door to new projects, an opportunity for young people to realize their ideas and dreams with the support of an organization.
We currently have about 1600 members who participate and promote activities in areas as diverse as intercultural learning, participation and volunteering, Europe and youth, international mobility, environmental awareness, sports, among others.
Our impact extends beyond Cascais, both nationally and internationally, through the many international mobility projects carried out. Throughout these years, many young people have been here and have participated and created new activities, always in a peer learning logic. We believe that knowledge sharing is facilitated by peer identification and that creating a space of trust is key to experiencing and daring. 🌱
Meet some of us behind the scenes! 🎉
The Connectivity crew decided to meet, catch up, discuss the situation and come up with new ideas on how to create more online content!
Stay tuned for more! 🌳
The project is co-created by Olde Vechte Foundation, Active Bulgarian Society, Rota Jovem, Praxis Greece, Europe House Slavonski Brod, YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders and Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France.
Funded by Erasmusplus-NL.
To tackle the challenge of reaching and including young adults in a learning process, we need to provide them tailored interventions. Outdoors activities are a good opportunity to give space to more playfulness and effectiveness at the same time, to focus on the skills people actually possess, and not just those they lack while creating a dynamic and stimulating learning frame.
Along with the 7 partner organizations, Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France and its local partners will share their good practices and work on the development of a sustainable and replicable method.
To support it, 4 training courses will take place over the next 3 years. They are designed to help social workers in implementing high-quality activities to achieve the following goals:
– how to reach out to adults who might have a negative perception of education?
– how to identify where the individual learner needs guidance and support?
– how to design programs choosing the most suitable pedagogies, as well as to identify the most appropriate times and places for learning?
Exciting, right? Stay connected for further information! 🥳
We are committed to organizing outdoor activities with our local partners and involving our members and volunteers, using the learning method elaborated with the other organizations. The main idea is to support young adults from different countries in entering the labor market through inclusion. We believe these people involved should be truly engaged in every process – they should always have tasks and activities in each event, which brings them closer to understanding what they are already good at and what they would like to develop.
As Rota Jovem from Cascais, Portugal, we will work with our local partners, that have recognized work with young adults in the employment and social inclusion areas. We are planning to do a lot of activities and events, like outdoor camping weekends, reforestation events, employability bootcamps, hiking, surfing classes, beach clean-ups, working in community gardens, football tournaments, fundraising in local events, swap markets and street actions (e.g. demonstrations, awareness-raising activities, flashmobs).
Stay tuned for further updates. 🌊
“Connectivity” is a project that focuses on developing a method of sustainable inclusion for unemployed adults and disadvantaged groups by creating an accessible learning frame through educational outdoor activities.
Through this project, we would like to offer a solution to this challenge by giving high-quality learning opportunities, which are tailored to the needs of each individual disadvantaged adult, so that they have higher chances to enter the labor market. By creating an innovative playground and engaging people with limited formal education in the activities and work of the organizations, inclusion will be achieved and unemployment will be tackled.
The project brings together 7 partners from the Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Portugal and France.
For us, Active Bulgarian Society team, “Connectivity” is a great opportunity to expand our partners’ network, learn from more experienced partners in the Adult Education field, and last but not least, share our solid experience in the field of non-formal education and outdoor activities, for the use of the unemployed adults and disadvantaged groups, the target group of the project.
Thus, this project will help us engage more adults who are either unemployed or with fewer opportunities in order to find a job.
Moreover, we are going to improve or extend the high-quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of each individual disadvantaged adult in our community to enhance their key competencies.
Excited about this learning journey and looking forward to achieving great results! 😎🍀
Here we are! 🎉
“Connectivity” is starting and from now on you will be updated on every single event developed in this project-frame. Moreover, we will share news and information with you, all along the way.
Why would you follow us?
The aim of this project is to develop a method of sustainable inclusion for unemployed (young) adults through educational outdoor activities, therefore we would like to connect organizations who are already working with this group and to support them in creating activities and events that are both enjoyable and beneficial.
Stay tuned for more. ☺️
Follow us also on Instagram @connectivityka2.
The project is co-created by Olde Vechte Foundation, Active Bulgarian Society, Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France, Europe House Slavonski Brod, YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders, Rota Jovem and Praxis Greece.
Funded by Erasmusplus-NL.