So, what does these terms mean to you?
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Our starting point: empowerment - personal development - self-directed learning
These are some of the reflections our trainers, Hazel and Peter, presented to start of our common program:
So, what does these terms mean to you?
So, what does these terms mean to you?
The aims
With NEXT STEPS – NEW LIFE?! we want to improve our work as EVS-trainers in respond to the identified needs:
How can we as trainers support and empower the volunteers to define their next steps for their own future?
This includes the following aspects:
How can we help them to recognise and make use of their resources?
How can we help them from moving on focusing on problems to focusing on solutions?
How can we bring about understanding of their on-going learning process?
How can we support the young people to create a vision of their own future?
How can we support them to broaden their options in regard to their future?
How can we reinforce attitudes that encourage them to be responsible for their own future?
How to make the young people aware of their personal development?
What reflections / tools can we offer to facilitate them to become actors shaping their learning process?
- Identifying existing good practice
- Exploring new tools / methods / approaches and their relevance for the EVS trainings
- Identifying elements for the future conceptualisation of a coherent approach (links between the various trainings)
How can we as trainers support and empower the volunteers to define their next steps for their own future?
This includes the following aspects:
How can we help them to recognise and make use of their resources?
How can we help them from moving on focusing on problems to focusing on solutions?
How can we bring about understanding of their on-going learning process?
How can we support the young people to create a vision of their own future?
How can we support them to broaden their options in regard to their future?
How can we reinforce attitudes that encourage them to be responsible for their own future?
How to make the young people aware of their personal development?
What reflections / tools can we offer to facilitate them to become actors shaping their learning process?
The idea
A volunteer once said, that EVS is giving him two opportunities: The experience of living and working abroad in a new culture, and second, the opportunity to start a new life, when he is coming back.
As volunteers come closer to the end of their voluntary service, they often face a lot of questions: What did I achieve? What will I take home? What did I learn? Will this experience help me in my future? How can I use this experience? Will I loose everything I gained when I come back home? What will I do afterwards? How will my life be like? How did my project changed me as a person? And how does this effect my future?
In the sequence of EVS training courses, the usual moment such questions pop up is the Mid-Term Meeting. Last year, the expectations to share visions, plans, hopes and fears about one’s own future grew enormously. This became especially obvious with the end of the Future Capital programme. If we now look back, it seems, that the Future Capital programme may has covered (or helped avoiding) facing these questions. A volunteer could perceive his/her future still well protected by the EU, because the time after his/her voluntary service is still followed up by another programme. Thanks to the end of the Future Capital programme, volunteers have to take the responsibility to define next steps for their own future.
At first, we experienced the lack of Future Capital as a gap in our Mid-Term Meetings, only later we saw the potential of a new space to work on the future and the personal development of volunteers. At this point, we look for approaches and tools, attitudes and styles of working to support and empower volunteers to define their next steps for their own future.
As volunteers come closer to the end of their voluntary service, they often face a lot of questions: What did I achieve? What will I take home? What did I learn? Will this experience help me in my future? How can I use this experience? Will I loose everything I gained when I come back home? What will I do afterwards? How will my life be like? How did my project changed me as a person? And how does this effect my future?
In the sequence of EVS training courses, the usual moment such questions pop up is the Mid-Term Meeting. Last year, the expectations to share visions, plans, hopes and fears about one’s own future grew enormously. This became especially obvious with the end of the Future Capital programme. If we now look back, it seems, that the Future Capital programme may has covered (or helped avoiding) facing these questions. A volunteer could perceive his/her future still well protected by the EU, because the time after his/her voluntary service is still followed up by another programme. Thanks to the end of the Future Capital programme, volunteers have to take the responsibility to define next steps for their own future.
At first, we experienced the lack of Future Capital as a gap in our Mid-Term Meetings, only later we saw the potential of a new space to work on the future and the personal development of volunteers. At this point, we look for approaches and tools, attitudes and styles of working to support and empower volunteers to define their next steps for their own future.
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Trainers & participants of NEXT STEPS - NEW LIFE
Poronin, 2nd December 2006
