Young People Developing Collective Actions
The project focuses in particular on young migrants and international volunteers, drawing on their experiences of living in other cultures.
At the end of February, we had the privilege of heading to Palermo, Sicily, to collaborate with more than 30 trainers and facilitators from around the world. As part of our E+ funded IC4LOP project, we organised a three-day training course for facilitators who are working with young people to develop collective actions that respond to some of the big challenges facing our societies. The project focuses in particular on young migrants and international volunteers, drawing on their experiences of living in other cultures.
Over the three days, participants explored, in increasing depth, how to build connections within groups, and how to create strong foundations for examining questions around global justice issues and our place in the world. We worked with new tools and methodologies for supporting collective actions, looking at how we can encourage groups we work with to become engaged from a place of compassion that incorporates a critical analysis of the root causes of the problems we are grappling with.
Overall, participants found the training to be hugely challenging, stimulating, energising and potentially transformative. According to one, “my emotional intelligence as a facilitator has been improved”; another noted that “active pedagogy was applied at its extreme point”, which resulted in a lot of learning; while a third said it had equipped them with “a creative experience and a rich panel of tools”.
We would like to thank our hosts, CESIE, and our partners, Frances Volontaires and Zavod Volontariat, as well as all the incredible participants and the trainers. In the words of one participant, we are “so grateful for the time spent with such a passionate and inspiring group”.
To find out more about the IC4LOP project keep an eye on the Comhlámh Facebook page as well as here https://www.facebook.com/IC4LOP/
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