A blog by Gillian McDiarmid, Youth Development Worker, at Ocean Youth Trust.
And we’re here, together, just trying to make the world a better place.”
These were the words of our trainer Zita Szalai (Director of Tudatos Ifjúságért Alapítványt), as we were standing outside our training space in Holloko, Hungary, chatting and listening to the laughter and joy of over 20 professional youth workers.
In September, I was delighted to receive invitations to take part in two training courses specifically for youth workers. I would be training alongside 50 professional youth workers from 12 countries and travelling to Krakow, Poland and Holloko, Hungary. Erasmus+ funded both projects. Waking up on the 6th of November (flight day) I was excited, but also very nervous. all sorts going through my head – I had no idea whom I would meet, who the trainers would be, what the accommodation would be like, what the food would be like. Yes, all of the exact thoughts the young people we work with have before taking part in any of our activities.
The first course, “Sharing Learning from the Past” in Krakow, was learning how to build heritage projects with young people. Delivered by Youth Development and Integration Association STRIM, it aimed to increase knowledge and spark excitement in youth workers around heritage and history, which we could then pass on to young people. We visited castles and archives, community centres and traditional restaurants. This culminated in us creating a youth workers’ heritage manifesto which we can now all use in our respective countries.
The second course “Let’s Go!” in Holloko, Hungary delivered by Tudatos Ifjúságért Alapítványt focused on supporting youth workers to make the step up into leadership and management positions within youth development organisations. In stark contrast to Krakow, we were taken out of the city for the week to give us all a chance to breathe, be creative, focus on learning, and build our own wee community.
The content, delivery and pace of both courses were spot on.
Both projects used tried and tested youth work processes to help us feel comfortable, create trust, build a team and harness and nurture any connections we were making.
I started off my youth work career in Poland in 2002 on an exchange programme. Since then, I have worked for organisations that either focused on supporting young people to take part in exchanges or referred young people on to take part in them.
The two weeks in Europe reminded me just how important these opportunities are for young people and youth workers. Ultimately, it is the young people who benefit.
Sitting on my flight home, I felt a range of emotions, trying to process everything that had happened. I felt that I had pushed myself to engage fully in the process – I was exhausted yet invigorated; I was hopeful, motivated, and inspired!
I was sad that it was over, yet so happy that it had happened.
I had been well and truly “youth worked”. After two decades in the field, using these processes time and time again with different groups of young people, even I could still be trapped, captivated, by it!
Unfortunately, the UK government opted out of taking part in Erasmus+ as an associated third country, it will now be much more difficult, if even possible, to secure funding. There will now be very limited opportunities for youth workers in Scotland to take part in training with our European colleagues. We need these opportunities, and we deserve these opportunities.
As Zita said, all we, as youth workers want is to make the world a better place for ourselves and the young people we work with, and exchange programmes help us try to achieve this. My hope for the near future is that the Scottish Government will fulfil their commitment to developing a Scottish Exchange programme and that the youth work sector will be at the forefront of this.
This experience made me fall back in love with youth work, others should have that same opportunity.