Objectives

“Put yourself in their shoes second edition – Training Course for Youth Workers” is a project that  took place between September 1, 2019 and May 31, 2020 and it is part of the inclusion strategy that the entity is developing from its youth and associative development department. ASPAYM Castilla y León has been working for years to promote the inclusion of young people with disabilities in our community. In this sense, awareness-raising and normalization activities are organized and activities are committed to promote inclusion instead of integration.

ASPAYM Castilla y León organized the “Put yourself in my shoes – Training Course for Youth Workers” project a couple of years ago with a very positive reception from the participating entities. This project was part of the inclusion strategy that the entity is developing from its youthand associative development department. The “Ponte en mis Zapatos” initiative has been carried out in schools and youth centers in Castilla y León since 2013 and more than 8,000 young people from the community have participated in it.

Following this line of work, the project “Put yourself in my shoes second edition – Training Course for Youth Workers”, which seeks to train youth workers and/or youth leaders for them to know the particularities of working with young people with disabilities, is one more step in the aforementioned strategy.

The objective was to provide youth workers and/or youth leaders with the necessary tools to favor the inclusion of young people with disabilities in leisure activities organized in their communities. In this way, they can use the new knowledge learned as a methodology or a series of tools to include in their daily work. This will allow European Union entities to reach a greater number of young people and to help them to achieve the Europe 2020 strategy, which calls for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Activities

Youth workers and/or youth leaders from Spain, Turkey, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Romania and Lithuania participated from 16 to 21 February 2020 in Cubillos del Sil, León, in a training course with the aim of giving them the necessary tools to work with young people with disabilities and facilitate their inclusion in the youth activities of their community. In this sense, the main activity  planned for 28 participants, 3 participants from each one of the entities participating in the project. Besides, there will be also 3 trainers and a person responsible for logistics issues.

The methodology chosen to develop the dynamics included in the training course combines small theoretical introductions to the topic to be treated in each case with an eminently practical component based on the own experiences of the participants and the entities involved. In addition, dynamics developed such as the “Quality Fair for inclusion projects” or the “Design of inclusive project activities” that allowed participants to apply the knowledge acquired to facilitate their work.