From Forming Till Performing in International Environment
ERASMUS + KA1 Youth exchange
From May 4 until May 10, 2016, in small village in Latvia called Matīši we had the Erasmus+ youth exchange project “From Forming till Performing in International Environment”. From informal youth group “IGDIR AB GENCLIK GRUBU” there took part 8 participants.
The aim of the project “From Forming till Performing in International Environment” was 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.
Many good business ideas haven’t developed into real business because there is a lack of an effective team. 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.
Usually during the youth exchange there are a lot of games and activities available for team building, however there is a lack of explanation of psychological aspects of the processes what the team is going through, to become as an effective team, about the barriers in the teamwork and how to overcome them, how to increase the commitment and the accountability. Making the youth more aware of the psychological processes in a team work using the methods “learning by doing” the youth learned how to build trust, develop the commitment and how to resolve conflicts.
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.
After the selection of the participants the advance planning visit was organized in Latvia in March 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.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The information published in this group reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
