Between 1-11 October 2015, Cluj Napoca- European Youth capital 2015 was the host of the training course Empowering Youth-Strengthening communities , organized by YMCA Romania together with YMCA Gabrovo Bulgaria, YMCA Tirana Albania, YMCA Serbia, YMCA Ukraine, YMCA Poland, YMCA Italy, YMCA Netherlands, YMCA Spain, YMCA Portugal , YMCA England. This project is funded by European Union through Erasmus Plus program.

The aim of this project is to empower youth workers and young leaders to direct and control their own lives and to actively participate in the life on the organization and community. Furthermore, through empowerment to actively deliver programs for young people and to participate in the governance and decision making of their organization.

In the training we focused on tools and skills because skills can only be developed and matched to job needs when they are specific. To specify them, and identify the strengths, we need to experience, practice them, and ask ourselves how we think, feel and act in situations that are similar to those we can have at a workplace.
The international team of trainers and facilitators made a direct link in youth participation, engagement, volunteering and development of employability skills and how a program delivered by an organization could help the increase those skills.

The media component focused more on developing practical skills useful both for the partner organization and for each participant for personal or professional purpose. The participants made short movies on different topics.

Methods used were experiential learning with various indoor and outdoor activities, such as lectures, simulation, discussions, sharing, debrief, intercultural workshops, digital media workshops, problem-solving and team-building tasks, reflections, peer to peer education, basic coaching, self learning.

In 10 weeks after the training the participants will create in the partner organizations workshops, events, programs that they already designed in the training and the team of trainers will coach/support them in order to achieve the goals they set. After the implementation they will report back about it (pictures, online promotion, partner organization`s feedback), creating in this way a synergy of ideas&actions which lead to transformation and impact.

Pictures from the training you can find here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135787855@N05/sets/72157660273012027