The power of the words

Objectives

“The power of the words” is a project that will be developed between May 30, 2020 and March 29, 2021 and is part of the inclusion strategy that the entity is developing from its youth and associative development department. The ASPAYM Castilla y León Foundation has been working for years to promote the inclusion of young people with disabilities in our community. In this sense, awareness and normalization activities are organized and activities are promoted that promote inclusion rather than integration.

The initiative “The power of the words” is a new line of work that has begun to develop the entity and that serves as a complement to other initiatives developed from the area of youth. In addition, and since 2015, ASPAYM Castilla y León has begun to participate in European seminars and courses to offer young people in the region more opportunities, both in their current leisure and in their future development. Following this line of work, the project “The power of the words”, seeks to train workers and / or youth leaders to know how to apply the methodology based on creative writing to promote the social skills and abilities of youth, especially Young people with fewer opportunities.

The objective is to provide workers and / or youth leaders with the necessary tools to enhance the social skills and abilities of young people, especially young people with fewer opportunities, in the activities they organize 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 contribute to the achievement of the Europe 2020 strategy, which advocates smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The methodology chosen to develop the dynamics included in the training course combines small theoretical introductions to the subject to be treated in each case with an eminently practical component based on the participants’ own experiences and the entities involved. In addition, dynamics will be developed that will allow participants to apply the knowledge acquired to facilitate their work once they return to their countries of origin. It has also opted for self-evaluation combined with group evaluation as a way to ensure that participants make the most of the course and assimilate all the information provided.

As for the community, we hope there will be a positive impact that favors a more open and tolerant mind that allows all young people to participate in daily leisure activities regardless of whether they have any type of disability or not. We also hope to inform about the Erasmus + program and the possibilities it offers, both to young people and to society as a whole, and to highlight its role in responding to the needs of youth in our territory.

Activities

The main activity that will be developed in this project is a training course with which the methodology based on the use of creative literature as a tool for non-formal education will be announced in order to promote inclusion. It will take place at the facilities that ASPAYM Castilla y León has in Cubillos del Sil, province of León, called El Bosque de los Sueños.

The methodology that will follow the training course combines theoretical and practical aspects. At the same time, dynamics will take place in which the participants themselves can put into practice the knowledge they acquire with the objective of facilitating its application with the young people involved in the entities of their countries of origin.

In this regard, the participants who will participate in this project will be a total of 21, from 9 different countries, 9 entities, including a training team consisting of one person from the requesting entity and another from the Romanian entity and with 3 participants sent by country. The participants in the training course will be youth workers and / or youth leaders or who work in the entities, with similar purposes with which the partners who usually develop in their projects.

Thus, the people who are going to participate in the main activity have already shown their interest in the use of the methodology based on creative writing to favor the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities and, also, have assumed what they can contribute to the main activity based on their previous knowledge, experiences and expectations about it.

Impact

The impact that is expected to be achieved with the project “The power of the words” is that youth workers know the benefits of applying creative writing in the communities involved, thanks to a new work methodology based on non-formal education that allows them develop accessible dynamics for all young people, regardless of whether they have any limitations. It is about young people with and without disabilities being able to enhance their personal skills and abilities. In this way, they can feel more secure, empowered to do what they set out to do, and develop their interpersonal skills. This will result in greater personal and / or professional opportunities for the future and will contribute to reducing youth unemployment.

In the case of the participating organizations, we expect the impact to be a win-win situation, that is, thanks to this project they can complement each other, combine synergies, and benefit from the exchange of experiences with other entities. Thus, we hope that members who do not have experience working with creative writing as a methodological tool to enhance social skills and abilities and improve the inclusion of groups with fewer opportunities, can perform some adapted activity in their local communities. At the same time, we hope that those experienced partners working with young people with fewer opportunities can acquire the necessary tools to attract other young people. In this way, they can become reference entities in terms of inclusion in their field of action.

The impact on the target groups is perhaps the most important, since it is about ensuring that, thanks to the new work tools acquired by the participants, young people with fewer opportunities can actively participate in the leisure of their community without encountering any barrier. In this way, they can feel more secure, empowered to do what they set out to do, and develop their interpersonal skills. This will result in greater personal and / or professional opportunities for the future and, given what has been seen when similar activities have been carried out in Castilla y León, it will contribute to reducing unemployment among young people with fewer opportunities, including those with disabilities or at risk of exclusion. In the case of young people without fewer target opportunities, thanks to this project they will be able to improve their awareness of the problems of others, be more tolerant and show a more open and inclusive mentality with respect to the youth in their community.

Project No.  

2020-1-ES02-KA105-014764

Coordinator: ASPAYM Castilla y León (Spain)

Links  

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