Active Nonviolence: Peace begins with you(th)

This is the 5th training for youth workers by Towards a Nonviolent World. Download the call for application here. The project has an online phase (4 webinars) and a training course in September 17-23, 2018. (arrival 16th, departure 24th, or 23rd after 18:00!).

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

“Active Nonviolence: peace begins with you(th)” has the aims to: empower youth workers by knowledge, insights and skills to prevent violent escalation of conflicts, transform conflicts and engage in (inter-cultural) peaceful interactions and relations, increase the capacity and cooperation of Peace Builders in Europe, and impact society and support one another to sustain the motivation to be a Peace Builder.

In order to meet those aims, the project has three phases with the following objectives:
Online Learning Stage:

1. Reflect on the complexity of three important themes: understanding violence, understanding conflict and understanding power, through three webinars, online discussions and readings.
2. Create a common starting point for the training course.
3. Prepare action-plans, clarify the project and facilitate ongoing exchange and support (by trainers and fellow participants) after the training to increase follow-up activities.

Training Course:

1. Learn and practice communication skills, empathy, cultural sensitivity, conflict de-escalation and third-party intervention, the ‘key skills’ of Conflict Resolution (CR) and Peacebuilding (PB), through roleplays and games.
2. Provide positive examples and opportunities for youth & youthworkers to be more involved in peacebuilding, and discuss how they can empower youth with the skills they’ve practiced.
3. Provide campaigning/advocacy tools, to strengthen the voices of youth for peace in society.
4. Enhance international exchange, knowledge and the professional network of youth workers to increase their work-performance.

Follow-up Stage:
Implementing, sharing and expanding the knowledge, skills and results of the Training, through campaigning, to impact society and encourage more people to learn and apply CR and PB strategies.

PARTICIPANTS

24 youth workers who can share their new knowledge and skills with youth they work with, from or residing in: The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Turkey. By youth workers, we understand social workers, group leaders, trainers/facilitators, employees of Non-Governmental Organi-zations, activists, etc., who work with youth outside of schools and can impact youth directly, or indirectly (through policy, lobbying or advocacy for example). We are especially inviting people with a migrant/ refugee background to apply.

We will select the most passionate and committed trainees, according to three criteria:

1) motivation to learn more about nonviolence andpeacebuilding because it is relevant for their work, 2) ability to share their learning with the partner organization and youth, 3) feasible and relevant ideas for follow-up activity and a committment to implement these.

WHY YOUTH?

The voices of  youth are often excluded from efforts in peacebuilding, while their contribution should be actively supported, as they are important innovators and change agents and essential actors to build sustainable peace. (Check out UN Resolution 2250 the first resolution on youth, peace and security (2015).)

PROGRAM

There will be four webinars introducing key concepts, and one webinar to clarify all logistics for the training. You can view the draft of the Program of the training (which is still subjected to changes!) to see what subjects we adress and what we will do together. This year we will focus on the theoretical bits in the webinars, do some Conflict Resolution practice at the beginning of the training, and we will do a lot of group work on creating social change.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Knowledge and critical thinking: participants will have a deeper understanding of violence and nonviolence, Peace-building* and Conflict Resolution*.

Practical Skills: During the training participants will gain communication skills, empathy, cultural sensitivity, conflict de-escalation and third-party intervention. Thirdly, the last part of the training will focus on developing a campaign, learning how to make a problem analysis, actor-mapping and an action plan to find appropriate strategies and cover all the organizational steps. The topics for the campaign will be self-identified by the participants within the framework of youth work and violence & peace.

* Conflict Resolution involves practices to increase the resolution of conflict

* Peace-building is what needs to happen to create the conditions (e.g. implementation of Human Rights, tolerant political climate etc), that minimalize violent conflict and facilitate conflicts to be resolved nonviolently and contructively. PB can be actions on local, national or international level.

EXPENSES

Participation fee: 60 euro*

All accomodation is covered. Travel costs (of any means of transportation) to and from your home to the venue (and no additional detours!) are covered up to the following maxima:

• Turkey: €360 (incl. visa costs, if any.)
• Poland: €360 (for > 2000km) and for less €275)
• Romania, Spain, Italy, Czechia: €275
• Netherlands: for >100km €180, less €20

The travel expenses are reimbursed after the training course, upon receiving a PDF that includes your receipts of your journey (and only that for which receipts are presented will be covered!). International bank transfers or currency transfers are for the account of the participants.

*scholarships are available for those in need, please write to us.

RESULTS

In this training we distinguished between “output” and “follow-up”, meaning, we wanted to show you something of our training week, that we made together (output) and the participants made plans to apply what they’ve learned in a variety of ways (follow-up).

We had four groups: The theater group, the music group, the  “mini-zine” group and the boardgame group (which transformed into a follow-up project). You can already have a look at these following the links to the youtube videos.

We will publish and summary of the feedback and the follow-up plans around October/November 2018.