Project Reference: 2021-1-DE04-KA153-YOU-000010937
Project Status
Completed
- Start date 01-11-2021
- End date 31-10-2023
EU Grant
43.519,58 €
Programme
Erasmus+
Key Action
Learning Mobility of Individuals
Action Type
Mobility of youth workers
Countries covered
17
- New learning and teaching methods and approaches
- Preventing racism and discrimination
- Quality and innovation of youth work
Summary
Objectives
The primary goal of our project was to critically assess and enhance the role of games in non-formal education within the context of volunteer and youth activities. Usually, the use of games in these settings needs more substantial reflection on their advantages, challenges, and potential drawbacks. While games are widely employed for team building and content delivery, the project aimed to address and mitigate issues such as the reproduction of stereotypes, oversight of power structures, exclusion of individuals with disabilities, and violations of personal space.
Our objectives encompassed:
1. Critical Reflection on Games in Non-formal Education:
· Sensitised participants to various forms of discrimination.
· Created safer spaces to enhance inclusivity in youth and volunteering projects.
2. Intersectional Perspectives:
· Raised awareness and understanding of global justice, gender, class, race, inclusion, and climate justice in game facilitation.
· Developed and shared inclusive, diverse, and power-critical games.
3. Building on Partner Experiences:
· Built on partners’ diverse experiences with seminar contexts, target groups, and perspectives related to games in non-formal education.
4. Promoting Peace and Human Rights in Games:
· We deepened our understanding of the role of peace and human rights in games used for educational purposes.
5. Quality Improvement in Non-formal Education Instruments:
· Enhance the quality of non-formal education instruments for use in future events, projects, trainings, seminars, and general meetings.
6. Empowering Youth Workers:
· We aimed to provide youth workers with tools and methods for power-critical, inclusive, and peaceful games in educational work.
7. Manual Creation:
· A significant outcome of our project is the development of a comprehensive manual for games in educational work. This manual encompasses underlying concepts, shared experiences with safe spaces in games, and guidelines for peaceful playing.
8. Building Alliances and Solidarity:
· We believe we created a more robust alliance and solidarity within the peace and volunteering movement. This involves fostering collaboration among the organizations involved in this project and establishing networks for future cooperation and peace-education projects.
Ultimately, the project sought to contribute to active participation in democratic life, social and civic engagement, and the establishment of a more inclusive and peaceful educational environment. The phased approach, including online preparation, offline training, implementation, reflection, and follow-up, ensured a thorough and iterative process toward the achievement of these objectives.
Implementation
Online preparation period: questions and tasks to reflect on were distributed beforehand, so that participants were on the same level at the beginning of the training. Before the training we also had an online kick off meeting with all participants.
A Training that focused on the reflection of the use of games and playful methods in youth and other non-formal learning projects. It focused on the advantages and challenges of games, their connection to discrimination, inclusion and safer spaces. First steps for the creation of the manual were also included in the training as well as an outlook to the implementation period. The training was hosted by SCI Germany and took place in Sonthofen on 16.-23.04.2022, with 31 participants from organisations in Germany, Austria, North Macedonia, Turkey, Slovenia, Catalunya, Tunisia, Albania, France, Spain, Georgia, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Belgium.
Implementation phase: the participants used the knowledge they gained during the training to implement critical points and ideas on how to use games more carefully in their youth activities. They were asked to do a small personal reflection on each game they facilitated during their activities
In an offline seminar, participants reflected on their experiences with the games during the activities in the implementation phase and discussed them further to develop the manual. The group also discussed some topics that came up during the previous activities and there was time for discussing and planning related follow-up projects. The seminar took place from 16.-22.10.2022 in Mali Idjos (Serbia) with 18 participants from organisations in Germany, Serbia, North Macedonia, Turkey, Catalunya, France, Georgia, and Egypt.
Follow-up phase: participants included their learnings in their own educational activities and continued the finalisation of the manual
Participants were youth workers and staff or volunteers in volunteering and youth organisations in the above-mentioned countries as well as peace activists. They came from organisations that have expressed a need or interest in having intense discussions around discrimination and games in their educational work. Besides Participants belonging to a hetero-normative white able-bodies Norm, we also had participants from different marginalised group, as queer persons, Roma, Persons of Color, Neurodivergent persons and other regional marginalised groups.
Results
Our project directly impacted the participating youth workers by raising awareness for challenges and opportunities of, as well as discrimination and stereotypes in educational games. Participants felt more secure when introducing playful methods in their youth work and got motivation to improve them, as the discussions and methods used during the project gave them new inspiration, approaches, understandings and tools. During the project, they got to know peaceful and power-critical games and learned how to evaluate game-like methods critically. Besides the project content, they learned more about the Erasmus+ program and got to know and connected to youth workers from other European countries.
The participating organisations benefited from this project by sharing their perspectives with the other participating organisations. Moreover, they were able to ensure a higher quality of their youth projects, as young people experienced discrimination-free and power-critical games. As the project encouraged the development of follow-up projects, participating organisations hosted, or participated in further activities. Follow Up Activities took place for example in Germany, Belgium, Serbia, Jordan, Spain or Egypt.
We captured the project outcome in a manual for games in educational work that included underlying concepts, shared experiences, and guidelines for peaceful playing. On the one hand, this manual serves participating youth workers as support for their youth activities after the project’s lifetime. In addition, the manual allows for sharing findings and methods with other youth workers and organisations. By developing this manual during the project, we therefore aimed at improving the quality of NFE instruments for future youth activities, trainings, seminars, and general meetings within but also beyond the participating organisations.
The manual was co-created by the participants and was widely shared both in the organisations and networks involved in this project as well as in the tool database on SALTO.
Through this project, they furthermore formed stronger alliances and solidarity in the peace and volunteering movement with other European organisations
Through this project, we strengthened the visibility of antidiscrimination, inclusion and diversity and its connection to youth work and non-formal education the European volunteering and youth work. Participants left the projects with the skills to critically reflect both their own and their organisation‘s educational practices and they will be able to be more inclusive and diverse in their educational projects.