ACTIVE EUROPEAN CITIZENS OF TODEY - SUCCESSFUL FUTURE LEADERS OF TOMORROW
The project “Active Europeans citizens of today – successful future leaders of tomorrow” was a training course which encourages cooperation, exchange of experience, skills and good practices between people working with youth and youth organizations and was related to the European Year of Citizens – 2013. It lasted 8 days and took place in Gabrovo, in September 2013. The project involved 28 participants, three trainers and 2 people support staff from 13 countries (Turkey, Romania, Italy, Latvia, Denmark, UK, Estonia, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia and Bulgaria).
The main goal of the project was: promotion of the Youth in Action Programme (YiA) and its significance to young European citizens by exchange of good practices among the partner organizations (POs) and improvement of the partnership and initiation of future successful projects, which enhanced the competence of young people and increased their opportunities for employment.
The main activities of the project were: discussions, interactive presentations, games, visit of an orphanage, outdoor sports activities as well as cultural evenings. The working methods, which we had chosen were : creative presentations, "ice-breakers", "energizers", "harkness discussion", "group building" games, flip charts, methods for summarizing, working in small groups, evaluation methods, "world cafe" - in conformity with the non-formal education. The main result which we achieved was a well-built team of young leaders, which, through the ESN network, which operated in more than 35 countries, and transfered their experience and knowledge to other young people all over Europe.
The specific goals were: delivering of information to the largest groups of young people, regarding the main priorities of the YiA, as well as the importance of non-formal education; formation of skills for initiative and entrepreneurship, organizational skills for realization of different events and encouragement of young people and volunteers to be active European citizens.