Youth Work/Ers Matter!

ამბრელა

https://www.umbrellageo.org/

Lagurashvili st. 4, 0167 Tbilisi, Georgia

medeaumbrella@gmail.com

• Participation of young people in activities (planning, preparing, carrying out, etc.)
• Non-formal education/-learning
• Recognition/validation of learning
• Competence development of youth workers

A practice of processes and methods

By implementing the project “Youth Work/Ers matter!” we aimed to raise the quality of youth work in Georgia by enhancing the competencies (in running NFE activities) of youth workers working in youth organisations at the grassroots level. To reach this aim, we had the following objectives:
To improve the competencies of youth workers in running youth work with the use of non-formal educational methodology – the empowerment of youth workers and youth organisation capacities to run quality youth work activities with NFE methodology to improve the competencies of young people at the local level and bring positive impact to them.
To explore existing local and international tools, methods and good practices of youth work activities, including those with NFE methodology.
To create a guidebook of NFE and Youth Work, including a local Grassroots programme for young people.

During the project, we involved 25 youth workers from different rural areas of Georgia, active in the youth centres in the training course about NFE methodologies. With their involvement, we created the draft programme of grassroots youth work, which was later implemented by the participants and tested in three different youth centres. 

We consider this practice to be a good practice, which is worth sharing because of the following information: 

1. The intellectual outcome – the guidebook is available for all of the Georgian youth workers, which is adapted by analyzing the grassroots programme, which was already tested and evaluated in practice in three different locations with different youngsters. We can say that the programme is universal and will successfully work in all cases. In this outcome, there is valuable information about youth work, non-formal education, the methods and the phases of activities, such as – energisers (videos or text of how to do the different energisers), name games (videos or text tutorials), team-buildings (videos or tutorials), the methods of evaluation, etc. 
2. Gamification – In the program, created and implemented by the participants, we put gamification elements – boarding games as the tool to develop the competencies – which is kind of new practice for Georgia, and we can say that it worked very well to engage and mobilise young people in youth work while developing their competencies. 
3. Movie nights – We implemented the practice of movie screening as a tool for developing the competencies of young people. The participant youth workers organised the screenings with the debriefing.
4. Green approach in youth work – We adopted a green policy and besides the workshops about waste literacy, we started a waste campaign and encouraged the young people to start collecting waste and take it in their youth centres, which was gathered together and recycled after the grassroots programme. In this way, the policy changed the green habits of young people.
5. Points system – We created a unique points system for the youth workers and the young people. We gave the points to youngsters when they were attending the meetings, winning the board games, collecting the waste for recycling, coming to the movie screenings, etc. This system worked very well, and the youngsters were motivated to be as active as possible since the points were the recognition of their work and involvement. In the end, we gave the prizes for the best youth worker, the best team and the best participant. 

In general, this good practice has a significant impact on the local communities where the follow-up activities of the training course were implemented. 

More than 100 local young people benefited from high-quality NFE activities and developed their competencies by engaging in the grassroots programme. 

25 Youth workers became more confident in running quality youth work with NFE methodology. 

The system has been developed and created, which will be used by the youth centres throughout their lifetime and will be a tool to contribute to youth participation locally. 

The guidebook has been created, including all the tools to sustainably implement the same programme in different youth organisations. 

Youth workers