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Circus Pedagogy as tool to develop Youth Work

2019-1-SI02-KA105-0149652019Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: SI|ES|NL|LV|TR|HR|LT|PL|RO|EL|MK|SK|IT · Grant: €20,740
Pedagogy and didacticsCreativity and cultureYouth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Objectives

In a context where competition and individualism prevails, where the social bond between youngsters is becoming weaker and it is becoming increasingly hard to reach them, we understand the importance of developing and delivering interesting and stimulating activities to better involve youth worker's target group aged between 13 and 30. We want to propose appealing activities to youngsters in the form of circus pedagogy workshops. Apart from being attractive and stimulating to young people, these activities convey modern values of citizenship, honesty and cooperation and at the same time build personal self-esteem, trust, create more bonds between youngsters and promote inclusion of youngsters with fewer opportunities. With that in mind, we want to educate youth workers in order to diversify their pedagogical skills, raise the attractiveness and quality of their programs and provide them with an innovative and flexible method of work to help them reach their goals. We want to develop our participants` pedagogical competences in social circus, project management and animation techniques to offer activities and programs that better respond to the needs of individuals and address the needs of the disadvantaged. We use circus activities as a form of pedagogy in teaching and non-formal education. Our main idea is that circus activity is appealing and fun for everybody, making it ideal as a tool for educational work with youngsters. The aim is to introduce youth workers and youngsters to positive, healthy activities that encourages co-operation, and strengthen confidence, while developing co-ordination and persistence. The end result is much more than learning these skills – it also helps to improve self-esteem, build a social capital and direct people towards positive ways of living. Helped by a staff of professional circus experts, our goal is to teach the youth worker participating in the project the basics of various circus skills such as acrobalance (partner and group acrobatics), juggling, diabolo, balloon modelling etc. and various methods of preparing and implementing circus workshops, which they will be able to use as a tool in their work with youngsters. After the project, participants act as multiplayer in their own organization and share the knowledge they learned with their co-workers. Our partners are in need of qualified trainers and tools that can reach different people and our project aims to provide them with an opportunity to educate their staff and provide them with skills immediately applicable but also allow them to focus more of their resources on education program instead of on training. We want to help them implement new educational program including circus pedagogy within their own organisation, thus improving their quality and reach. Our partners have a networking need corresponding to their objective of improving quality and consistency of non-formal education. We want to involve many different countries as our project`s partnership will develop partners` network of contact, helping them to share good practice with other and develop new projects. We want to offer partners and participants a chance to broaden their cultural horizon, make new contacts outside their country and help them kick start their own international projects. We believe that these projects are a key to more efficient youth work, and therefore a key to improving youngsters’ lifestyle, promoting the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds, empowering young people and enhancing their active citizenship across the European Union. In accordance with the general objectives of Erasmus+ program and the specific objectives of KA1, our project addresses the issues of: -Youth work quality and improvement. We want to provide pedagogical improvement for youth workers and their respective organisations and more recognition of youth work in general -Active participation in society and labour market. We want to address directly or indirectly issues such as social skills improvement for target groups, health and well-being of young people, young people’s active participation, promotion of mutual solidarity and young people’s creativity -European cooperation and awareness.

Project partners (13)