Speaker's Corner is a project of strategic partnership, development, transfer, and implementation of innovative practices in the field of intersectoral cooperation. The aim of this project is to develop an interactive pedagogic tool which would give an educational answer to to the recognized common need amongst the involved partners concerning the youth field: the lack of an effective and efficient tool to promote tolerance, freedom of speech, presentational and communication skills, and respect towards other people's opinions. It also aims to encourage its participants to proactively and actively partake in democratic processes as well as raise the quality of life of the local community in general. Moreover, it would also strive to sensitize its participants and help them gain a better understanding of current societal problems such as the current refugee crisis, poverty in general, the inclusion of people with disabilities in everyday life and activities, increasing radicalisation etc. The project is envisioned to last 14 months from September 1, 2017. to October 31, 2018.. During the project, there will be aprox. 1000 youngsters that will actively participate in the phases of evaluation, testing, and creation of the new tool. We aim to develop a tool useful in all possible educational (the different sectors), social and cultural contexts. The partners (8 participating organizations are involved) that are participating are giving a special emphasizes and value to this project. They are, not just coming from different parts of Europe (Norway, Belgium, Portugal, sSovenia, Romania, Italy, Croatia, and Spain), but they are different in their work in the field of youth. Some of them are NGOs, some are youth centers, and others are field organizations. All this gives a very specific and synergic influence on the results of this project. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that some of the partners are having experience in KA2 strategic partnerships (for youth), and others are just entering this area and bringing new, fresh ideas on table. Speaker’s Corner is follow up of the BB games project the results of which were two interactive educational boardgames: Real Ideal – an exercise of financial literacy and Mission Z– a conflict management exercise. Finally, the great success of this project is that more than 150 young people coming from rural parts or young people with economical obstacles will have a great involvement in creation of the final product. The dissemination process of the results will be organized in the further work of all participating organizations by using the tool in their regular work with youngsters (several hundreds every year). What is highly to expect is follow up of the future projects that will integrate this tool in their program. The expected impact is upon several thousand users of socio-pedagogical tool Speaker’s Corner. Besides this, some of the partners have build up an extensive network in the different educational sectors over the past years, allowing an easy wide spread and dissemination. All project results will be available on the facebook page of the Speaker’s Corner tool, throughout dropbox, SALTO tool as well as on other online platforms for free usage of the materials. As mentioned before, we do strongly believe that gamification and role plays are, as part of non-formal and informal education, more and more necessary to be integrated to the formal education, both in schools and in other youth environments, such as youth centers and associations. The development of new tools will in any case adapt to the changing context we are living in and will produce inputs for young people to feel part of something (the society, the community they live in), therefore to take part in society and make something to change it, if they do not like what they live. Games always make people feel involved, we do believe that this will have the same effect on participants. This project is very important for the organisations since it is a very complete one: it touches different areas, such as non formal education, peaceful resolution of conflicts, tolerance, contrast to hate speech, competence building. Thank to the eight partners that are participating, huge number of young people will directll take part in creation of this pedagigical tool what we see as the largest benefit of tis project.
Speaker's Corner is an interactive pedagogical tool that was created during the KA 2 Strategic Partnership project of the Erasmus + Program by the partner organizations coming from the eight countries: Croatia, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, and Romania. The organizations are different in their work in the field of youth. Some of them are NGOs, some are youth centers, and others are field organizations. All this gave a very specific and synergic influence on the results of this project. The exercise was tested upon more than 650 participants who gave their opinion and suggestions for the development. In all phases of the project implementation more than 1000 youngsters participated and more than 150 youngsters facing the economic and geographical obstacles were included as well. Thanks to this, partners developed two versions of the exercise (classic and debate version). The target groups for the first version are youngsters older than 8yo (10-60 participants). Second version can be used with youngsters of 13yo and older (7-30 participants). General goal of this exercise is to use non formal methods to develop an open discussion among participants, in a safe environment of simulation/role game that can generate reflections of their future actions. By using this tool, the main emphasizes are on increasing the awarness of freedom of speech, respect of the other's opinions, "standing in the other's shoes", as well as to encourage active listening, social inclusion, democratic participation, and critical thinking. Advantages: - encourages activation and participation within an already consolidated group - facilitates interaction within a group not yet consolidated - can mediate discussion of sensitive / personal subjects - allows the emergence and formation of ideas and opinions by individuals - allows active listening and avoids interruptions during the discussion Disadvantages: - if the participants do not interact, it loses its effectiveness - in large groups the participation of individuals can be reduced - those who have previous experience in debating activities can find the discussion rough or superficial. Potential: - it is an activity that can be repeated with the same group over time - themes and cards can be implemented and updated - kit and methodology can be applied to other uses related to work with young people Limitations: - it is not an improvisable activity - may require a certain interpretative ability (if you want to provoke a strong reaction in the participants) - requires facilitation skills - requires the use of the card kit The exercise has proven itself to be very useful to stimulate the reflection and debate on not so daily topics and/or topics usually faced in a very superficial way. Gamification and role plays, as the main methodology used in this exercise, are, as part of non-formal and informal education, more and more necessary to be integrated to the formal education, both in schools and in other youth environments, such as youth centers and associations. Debate dynamics, whenever conflicting, become more careful and respectful and you listen more carefully the opinion expressed by the other, even when you want to contrast it.The group reaches its own balance so that inside of the activity, but also when it comes to an end, participants continue to respect time of intervention of others and let them finish their speech. In frequent occasions of use during international youth mobility projects, the exercise allowed to set a behavioural precedent, enough to orient and influence the following sessions of reflection and sharing of ideas and opinions. All project results are available in nine European languages on the Facebook page of the Speaker’s Corner tool, throughout Dropbox link, SALTO tool portal, as well as on other online platforms for free usage of the materials.