The experience of Paola
From 27 to 31 March, the seminar “Youth@Work – Rural development, inclusive growth and youth work” took place in Trieste. 22 youth workers from 14 countries, including from outside Europe, participated. These were intense days in which the participants’ local situations were presented and both good practices for implementing these realities and bad practices that should be avoided when working in a rural area were exchanged.
Personally, I think that one of the most important aspects of this seminar was getting to know new realities and organisations, with the possibility of networking and already starting to design collaborations for future projects and in general a follow up of this seminar. In addition, it was very interesting for me to learn about the many programmes and calls that exist outside of Erasmus plus to write projects and create opportunities such as youth participation.
The results were taken forward by several groups who produced a report, social media content, a video with interviews and podcasts. All these materials are essential to have an even deeper impact locally, nationally and internationally. The podcasts are available to listen on Spotify https://spotify.link/rPlkRbbjPyb and SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/youth-vox-per-voxpopuli/sviluppo-rurale-crescita-inclusiva-e-youthwork-youthwork-trieste
The facilitation by Angelica and Samer, together with the support of Luca, Benedetta and Catty and the contribution of each individual participant, were valuable resources that ensured the success of the seminar.
I value this experience positively as it has enriched me greatly and provided me with new points of view, ideas and new ties and contacts that I take home with me to Valle Camonica, a reality that is rich in resources but at times still somewhat closed and from which I sometimes feel detached and distant due to my international experiences.
As good practice I presented the project: “C6? Young in Vallecamonica”, an idea started from a reading of the needs of the Valle Camonica context in terms of active participation and youth aggregation. They have already organized several events, some focus groups and a tree planting. The heart of a project focused on taking care of young people’s ‘leisure’, i.e. all those activities attributable to the sphere of so-called ‘free time’ and useful, from a formative-educational point of view, as a form of social prevention. You can find more info on Instagram and Facebook
Finally I hope to be able to participate soon in other initiatives of the National Youth Agency and of the Youth@Work network which made this enriching experience possible and which I also thank on behalf of my organisation Youmore APS
