Mobilita

Youth on Wings or Principles of International Youth Work

This publication is a reaction to the situation in Slovakia in the 90’s, when the first EU programs concerned with non-formal education (like Youth for Europe) were adopted. These programs used mobility not just to fill the young people’s leisure time, but mainly as a tool to educate the young citizen. This publication is dedicated to professional or volunteering youth leaders. The first part called “The First Swallows” presents the experiences and opinions of the first young Slovak people, who took part in the youth exchanges through the Youth for Europe program or belonged to the first volunteers of this program. The leaders of youth organizations or institutions, who work with youth, had to answer why they included the organization of an international activity in their operation.

“The Way to the End” describes reasons, procedures and means of the international youth work. In the “It is Good to Know” part it is possible to find answers for the frequently asked questions as well as other informational and financial sources connected to the international youth work.

Let’s Prepare a Youth Exchange

The idea of a youth exchange, brought to Slovakia by the EU’s programs Youth for Europe and YOUTH as means of non-formal education for youth outside school and family, where they can try out their skills and knowledge and gain new knowledge, used to be something extraordinary in the last century and the Slovak public has had to identify itself with it first and it was not until this was finished that it could adopt the international youth exchange as its common practice.

The publication comprises of a comics part, where the process of youth exchange preparation of one non-formal group is described. Individual parts of the story are completed with basic theoretical and practical information: exchange motivation, trust building in a team, looking for partners, group and idea presentation, communication, program creation, financing, practical affairs and the like.

Let’s Prepare a Contact Seminar

Some of the main obstacles of a well developed international youth work in Slovakia are: lack of tradition, ignorance of the language and the non-existence of foreign partners. The Slovak Youth Institute prepared several contact seminars in 1998 – 1999 to try out its own module for realization of such a format.

This publication offers some basic information about preparation and realization of a contact seminar in such a way so as to ensure that some contacts and bonds are created amongst the partner organizations: what is a contact seminar, what is it good for, what kind of parts does it have, tips for making new acquaintances, recommended leisure time activities and social program, discussion topics (how to build a partnership and the like), the duties of the organizers and participants, tips for presents and evaluation activities.

To Europe through Games I., II., III.

This publication for the organizers of international youth activities offers ideas and “ready-to-use” activities to get to know each other, remember names, break ices, energizers, team building activities, intercultural learning, activities helping to find out people’s expectations and evaluation activities. There are also some job sheets and basic materials connected to various activities in English. The Slovak Youth Institute workers created publications based on monitoring of various international activities and trainings for international and Slovak youth.