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Youth Workers 2.0: Improving Digital Skills of Youth Workers

2022-2-BE05-KA153-YOU-0000911112022Mobility of youth workersfinalizedGood practice
Countries: BE|FR|DE|LV|IE|HR|SE|TR · Grant: €28,747
Information and communication technologies (ICT)Bridging intercultural, intergenerational and social divideNew learning and teaching methods and approaches

Objectives

As we stated in the proposal, people are efficiently using digital media tools and technology to reach out to disadvantaged groups. They enable publishers to communicate with audiences through numerous platforms by developing interactive content to give a voice and express a message. For example, in the European Action Week Against Racism, 2021, activists, non-governmental organizations, universities, schools, municipalities, and a wide range of other organizations carried out hundreds of activities across Europe to massively protest racial injustice both on the streets and on social media, and organized around 3,000 events under the hashtag #FightRacism on social media, calling on their peers to speak out and stand up for the equal rights of all. This demonstrated to us how digital media may be utilized to efficiently reach those who live in remote areas. However, statistics suggest that a large proportion of youth workers lack the necessary digital skills and attitudes to fully exploit the opportunities afforded by digital technologies to organize qualified youth work (ECDL Foundation, 2020). They must learn how to use digital technology to carry out their youth work, such as providing educational and cultural opportunities through courses and workshops, creating promotional materials to reach a specific target group, and increasing their visibility through the use of the appropriate digital devices and applications. (Commission of the European Union, 2018). More youth workers were required to develop their digital technology skills in 2020, when the Covid19 epidemic began, in order to stay in touch with their target groups and make them feel safe, valued, continued doing their work online and connected to their communities (CDYSB Digital Needs Analysis, 2020). This incident demonstrates the need for youth workers to develop their digital abilities in order to improve the quality of their employment. As U Thrive Europe we decided to organize a training course to strengthen the digital abilities of youth workers with the help of international partners, because the problem is widespread in Europe. As a result, we reached out to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and informal groups to help us put this idea into action, and we opted to work with another seven organizations from Turkey, Latvia, Ireland, Croatia, France, Germany, and Sweden. With the participation of 160 young workers from partner organizations, we conducted a needs analysis and generated the following objectives based on the findings: 1. To improve youth workers' digital media skills in order to provide more efficient educational opportunities, conduct community-wide awareness campaigns about disadvantaged groups, promote the exposure of their organizations, and undertake digital promotional activities. 2. To enable youth workers to exchange difficulties with disadvantaged groups and good practices, in order to help them improve their profession by learning new ways to integrate digital media technologies into their work. 3. To enhance the abilities of youth workers in the areas of new media and digital tools, teamwork, creativity, communication, critical thinking, and decision-making. 4. To enable youth workers to develop new technology-enhanced youth work activities, particularly for disadvantaged groups, 5. To improve youth workers' knowledge of ecological footprints, environmental sustainability, and how to make lifestyle choices that reduce negative environmental impact of youth exchange. 6. To enable youth workers to form a network in order to share and promote good practices in youth work, particularly with regard to disadvantaged groups and innovative ICT practices. 7. To improve the competencies of youth workers in Erasmus + programs and to encourage them to collaborate in other projects by networking among them.

Project partners (8)