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imPROvement

2022-1-EE01-KA152-YOU-0000667452022Mobility of young peoplefinalized
Countries: EE|IT|HU|MK|PT|PL|LT · Grant: €24,529
Creativity, arts and cultureKey competences developmentPhysical and mental health, well-being

Objectives

This project was inspired by a previous project that was applied in 2018 by Youth Senate Tallinn called imPRO. In that project we explored the topics of self-discovery, developing personal and professional skills and thinking outside of the box through using creative methods, such as improvisation, theatre and public speaking as a tool. The project implementation was a great success and received really positive feedback from the participants and it inspired us to write another edition of this project, now called imPROvement. The new edition imPROvement was planned to have new elements, with more focus on movement and new tools via improvisation. The new edition imPROvement brought together young people from Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Macedonia. Our target group was youngsters between the ages of 18-25, as these are often the people in the age group where they are still not sure about their life paths and can use some guidance and self-discovery to find out what to do in the future. By implementing this project we wanted to have a diverse group of youngsters, which would help create a positive atmosphere for working on inter- and intrapersonal skills, as all of the people came from different backgrounds and had different knowledge to share. In the programme there were activities led by the facilitators, bringing the improvisation and movement related workshops to youngsters, but also activities led by each national team. This helped keep the programme together, having activities that helped us reach the objectives of the project, but it also allowed space for people to share their skills and practice facilitating, through which they were able to practise their learned skills. We have been using improvisation as one of the tools for self-development for many years already in our international and local activities and we see how effective it is to connect people from all backgrounds and professions. It is a positive and powerful tool, where people can practise their public speaking skills, developing quick reactions to situations, better their acting skills and develop creativity. As there are no right or wrong answers in improvisation and it is all about going with the flow, it can be a great tool for people who are afraid to make mistakes or come out of their comfort zone. As we used a variety of different improvisational activities, both ones that were done individually, in pairs and in groups, it gave the participants a variety of tools that can also be used at home as accessible, effective and inexpensive tools to develop skills, boost mental health and confidence. Our goal was to provide the youngsters with these tools and methodology to help the participants grow their skills that can be applied in their personal and professional lives, but also to support them in learning how to lead workshops and activities. What we wanted to achieve was to not only have an effect on the people who took part in this project, but also to support them in learning how to create and lead workshops, so they could take the learned skills to their home communities and to maximise impact there. The specific objectives of this project were to help young people to refine their inter- and intrapersonal skills, which helped improve people’s self-perception and communication skills; gain a deeper understanding and self-awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses and improve self-confidence in a safe environment by confronting fears and self-limiting beliefs. To achieve these we used methods of improvisation, theatre and other artistic techniques as a tool for inclusion and to boost creativity and innovative thinking and support the participants to learn how to bring the skills they develop to bring back to their home countries to improve their local communities.

Project partners (7)