Let's Facilitate

The project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

"Let's Facilitate" was an Erasmus+ Training Course about organizing and implementing international projects. The main activity happened between 6-14 October 2023 in Dánfok, Hungary. 24 young youth workers and 2 trainers came together from Poland, Romania, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Lithuania, and Hungary to take part in a non-formal educational experience.

With this project, we addressed the problems identified in the nine organisations of our partnership. The common issue we identified was the fact that newcomer youth workers lacked competences in facilitating non-formal educational workshops.

In order to address this problem and improve the current situation, we stated our main aim:

To provide newcomer youth workers with the knowledge, skills, and competences needed to take the initiative and become facilitators of non-formal education workshops by sharing with them crucial know-how of all the facilitation steps from planning learning opportunities to evaluating them.

Participants took part in activities, workshops, reflections, and evaluations and also implemented sessions by themselves. After the project, participants established new partnerships and started planning their own Erasmus+ projects.

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Daily blog

Day 1

"We started the day as total strangers. We didn't know each other but slowly we learned each other's names, our countries, and more personal details during a philosophical walk around the forest. We were pairing up and answering different questions while exercising, perfect combination right?

After coming back and having a coffee break we dug deeper into the project, where we were presented the journey we are about to have for the next week and we were asked to share our goals, challenges, and contributions.

After the lunch break, we started off the afternoon sessions with outdoor activities where we focused on building trust and works as a team by using a rope. Later we created together a caring agreement and reflected on it, some teambuilding activities, and evaluation of competencies. A good foundation to know where we start from.

At night we ve made the intercultural spotlight where eight countries were presenting. We had fun, sang, ate, and bonded through the shared values. Then we had a relaxing night of board games."

Day 2

"We started the day with the energizer with the aim of refreshing our names. It consisted of dividing into two groups, separated by a blanket. When the blanket was dropped down each person in front of it, had to guess what was the other person`s name.

We continued with the team building exercise, called “Pasta Tower”, divided into groups, where we were given limited materials and time to build the highest tower.

This exercise was done two times in order to make us work with less resources and collaborate with each other.

In the late morning, we also learned about Kolb`s Experimental Learning Cycle, which was connected with the previous activity.

It consists of four phases, needed to achieve an effective learning process.

After this presentation, we were again divided into small groups and we researched different roles in youth work (Facilitator, Trainer, Teacher and Presenter). At the end of it, each one of us had the time to reflect on ourselves and the roles we have.

After lunch, we did a quick energizer made by one participant and then we learned about the skills a facilitator needs, by acting as little sketches. Through these sketches we had to guess the skills that were presented and we shared our advice on how to use those skills in youth work.

In the following activity, some participants had the chance to share their personal experience in youth work, in the form of the human library method, allowing everyone to learn from each other.

As we do every day, we closed the activities by reflecting with our groups, focusing on what we learned and felt.

Additionally to the planned activities, we were provided with open space evenings, in order to experiment with our own workshop ideas. This day’s workshop, led by a participant, was about drama improvisation. The workshop was designed to be accessible even for beginners, going on different levels, with practical exercises to naturally express ourselves and test our improvisation skills."

Day 3

"Gooooood morning people☀☀

On this day we woke up for an amazing breakfast by Reni and her incredible breakfast team.🍞🍞🍞🍞

In the morning we started by giving feedback to our coordination and later we learned about different workshops and we were challenged to create our own workshops for sharing in only 25 minutes.⛷⛷

In the afternoon we identified and tried to solve different challenging situations that could happen in a group 🙈🙉🙊

🎯🎯After a great dinner we used our creativity by drawing and connecting with each other and we closed the night with an emotional self-expression workshop by using our voices and making noises. Thank you to our colleagues Marta and Daria, who made this happen for us.😊"

Day 4

"We started the day with an interesting energizer: a mooing battle. 

After that, we moo-ved on to more serious things. We divided into four groups to brainstorm some workshop titles and topics in relation to EU values. The creativity flowed freely, and we made 4 posters with inspiration for workshop ideas. Then, we had some time to explore a gold-mine-like tool for youth workers to share ideas - it's a website called Salto Youth. Our morning session ended with learning how to create a project timetable and a group effort to apply the information to practice. The discussions were heated and we had a fruitful reflection part where we talked about how to make our teamwork more effective.

In the afternoon we had the opportunity to ask questions about writing an Erasmus+ project and our experienced trainers were answering every question with patience.

The day ended with some inspiring workshops led by participants Denise and Riccardo. We had a relaxing mindfulness practice where we connected with our soul, body and thoughts. Then, we connected with the group through an energizing drum circle."

Day 5

"Aaaand the time has come to put our knowledge into practice. 

We established our own groups and started preparing workshops for high school students. Most groups created some fun, active learning activities where the pupils had the chance to get to know more about the participating countries and practice their English skills. The afternoon sessions were set up to test what we have planned for the students and if it was needed we changed some things in the workshops based on the given feedback and the timeframe. 

After the program design, the evening activity was proposed by Olga to have a number war in the forest. Believe us it was one of the funniest game ever."

Day 6

"We started the day earlier than usual to be on time at Andrássy High School in Békéscsaba. Everybody was so excited to present their workshops to the students in the framework of Erasmus+ Days. Every group had the chance to facilitate 2 workshops. The students might have been shy at the beginning but at the end of the workshops, they enjoyed taking part in them and having fun together.

After the hard work, we finally had a well-deserved Italian lunch at Spanish lunchtime (3 p.m.).

During lunch, we discussed our experiences about the facilitation process. We also had 1.5 hours to explore the landmarks of Békéscsaba before returning to our venue, where we had a bonfire night and sang together."

Day 7

"As all good things end at some point, our training course also got to its last day. The day started with a recap of what we have learned and did throughout the week. During the second session, we discussed with our national teams how we could disseminate the results of our project and came up with individual or group workshop ideas to spread the word about Erasmus+ and further enhance our facilitation skills. 

The afternoon was dedicated to closing. We spent the last hours with hour reflection groups and slowly prepared ourselves to say goodbye. In the last activity, we all had the chance to look into each other's eyes and write down our thoughts connected to the person. It was an emotional moment and a perfect bonding-closing activity. However, thanks to our funny and amazing participants the project ended in a funny mood with a Got Talent Show, where everybody could show their talents to the audience. We saw theater plays, make-up shows, storytelling, dancing, singing, everything that you would see in a Got Talent and of course, some performances made us cry from laughter."

Project's Booklet