From Forming till Performing in International Environment

Özet, Erasmus+ Project Results platformunda yayımlanan İngilizce metindir.

Many good business ideas haven't developed into real business because there is a lack of an effective team. The survey results of the analysis of the labour market needs made by University foundation Campus Europae this year shows that the most desirable skills that are expected from the employees by the majority of the employers are interpersonal skills, problem solving, working in the team etc.
Furthermore the societies nowadays become more international as well as growing businesses are usually international businesses – it means that in order to increase the employability of youth, the need for inter-cultural communication skills increases, as well as skills to work in international teams and international environment.
The project was implemented by 5 countries: Latvia, Turkey, Malta, Portugal, Italy. These countries were chosen to make more broader cultural difference so the youth can learn more about international environments.
The aim of the project "From Forming till Performing in International Environment" is to improve the team work skills of youth in international environment by using different informal education methods and to make the youth more aware on the processes in a team work.
The objectives of the project were:
– to help the youth to become more aware of the team developing processes with an emphasis on international teams,
-to encourage the youth to be honest and to help them to overcome the conflict, if the opinion in the team is different
-to help the youth to go through the project phases together with their team and become more aware on tools which they can use to make projects in the team more successful
-to promote the idea of "Youth initiative" and to encourage the youth to share their ideas and develop international projects with international teams in this field
-to help the youth to learn from their mistakes and to encourage them to find the solutions if something goes in a different way than planned before
-to make the youth aware of cultural differences, to help them to learn from different cultures and to find the ways of collaboration with people from different cultures.
In this youth exchange project 36 participants were involved.

From Latvia, Italy and Turkey there were 8 participants per country and from Portugal and Malta there were 6 participants per country. In each group there were 1 group leader, at least 2 participants with educational problems or socially and economically disadvantaged, at least 3 participants with some experience in team work and willingness to support the other members of the team. This proportion of participants helped the youth with educational problems to go successfully through all the phases in the exchange and they will be supported by the other participants.
The age of the participants will be 18 – 30. The group leaders will be at least 18 years old.
After the selection of the participants the advance planning visit was organized in Latvia to discuss with the group leaders and the participants the details of the youth exchange so that they can prepare the participants. During this meeting it was decided to organize the cultural nights every evening – so that during one evening one country can present themselves. In this way the youth could prepare more activities and more information about their culture and country.
During the youth exchange the worked on the development of the project ideas for "youth initiative" and how to make the youth more socially active and in this way they did become also more aware on working in teams – the processes: forming, storming, norming and performing was discussed analyzed and the participants discovered different methods and instruments how they can improve their work as a team. As well as they did become more aware on main phases in project management.
During the project different energizers, group games, discussions, team building sessions, out-door activities and team coaching elements were used to reach the objectives of the project and overall aim of the project.
The participants did improve following competences: sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, cultural awareness and expressions, learning to learn.
The ice-breaking games and cultural nights did help the participants to raise the tolerance among themselves and their culture, the prejudice was removed, their willingness to make friendships did improve, thanks to the tolerance they did develop towards different cultures and beliefs, they were establishing inter cultural dialogue. As a result of this adaptation the idea of long cooperation among the organizations did improve.
During the project the youngsters did understand better the cultural differences and similarities among them and their main conclusion was that nowadays the cultural differences are not barriers for a good collaborative work to be done together.