From the 26th May to the 2nd June 2018 Creative Opportunities hosted 31 youth workers from 12 countries and 15 guest speakers, trainers and facilitators at Woodrow High House to deliver Supporting Youth to Act Local and Be Social – a training course funded by Erasmus+. The goal for the week was to come together to learn and share ideas about how to support young people to create and deliver their own social action projects, locally, nationally and internationally.
The participants represented organisations in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and the UK. You can visit the Facebook page for the organisations representing each country by clicking on each country’s name.
These participants shared information on local issues that affect young people in their home countries and learned a range of techniques to develop skills for campaigning.
They took their learning back home and shared it with the young people they work with, delivering workshops and sessions to explore local issues and engage young people in developing their own campaigns for change!
During the programme, we were joined by speakers from the following organisations:
(Click on the organisation name to visit their website)
Act Build Change. Founder Stephanie Leonard joined us as a speaker in a station rotation of activist success and returned to deliver a workshop on the power of one to ones.
The Advocacy Academy. Founder Amelia Viney joined us on Thursday morning to deliver workshops on tactics and strategy.
Advocacy Academy alumni Ilhan, Jemmar and JP joined us throughout the week to discuss their activist success. JP is one of the founders of Undivided – ensuring the young people of the UK have their voice heard on Brexit.
Campaign Bootcamp. Lead Trainer and Outreach Coordinator Tamara-Jade Kaz delivered workshops on Anti-Marginalisation (co-delivered with Nonhlanhla Makuyan) and Power Mapping as well as facilitating.
Labour International. Lola-May of Labour International joined us for a panel discussion about young activist success. Lola-May is also involved with The Fight Continues, a student collective in solidarity with the striking academics and opposed to the continuing marketization of higher education through zine journalism.
Momentum. Momentums National Training Organiser Beth Foster-Ogg joined us alongside Group Development and Volunteer Coordinator Santiago Bell-Bradford to deliver a session on negotiation and power.
Positive Money. Policy and Media Officer Simon Youel delivered a workshop on press releases. Youth Network & Office Assistant Nonhlanhla Makuyana co-delivered a workshop on Anti Marginalisaton with Tamara-Jade Kaz.
The Winch. Youth Worker Lita Wallis and Library Manager Lucy Telfer joined us along with Young Researcher Bengisu to deliver a workshop on zines and discuss Take Back The Power, a Participatory Action Research Project.
We also received curriculum support and guidance from the following organisations/people:
Nim Ralph from Campaign Bootcamp
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith from NEON
Dora Meade from PIRC
Below are some images (with image descriptions) from the programme.