Between 27-29th of June 2023, local trainings under the VISYON project have been implemented with 9 young people in Sofia, Bulgaria. The 3-day local training are part of the two yeas project VISYON that will be implemented between the 01-03-2023 to the 28-02-2025, funded under the Erasmus+ programme.
Involving 8 European countries, the VISYON project is aimed to give young Europeans the necessary tools to express freely their needs and desires, voice their concerns and recommendations, as well as discuss the efficacy of the European policies in serving the needs of the European youth and ways for their improvement.
The local trainings in partner countries are the first phase of the VISYON project and are dedicated to connecting, engaging and empowering young people at a local level to take more active part in European policies. Through different creative and non-formal learning methods, the local trainings will allow the participants to get familiar with the 11 Youth Goals and to raise their opinions in front of institutions and policymakers.
On the first day of the local training, young people got introduced to one another through an interactive activity to discover their interests, hobbies and relevant backgrounds. Then, they were introduced to the 11 youth goals and the European Youth strategy, as well as, European policies in the field of youth. Further, participants were divided in groups and asked to pick one of the youth goals and prepare a sample project to raise awareness among their peers on the particular youth goal.
The second day was devoted to Media Literacy, the importance to develop digital skills and to be able to combat fake news and disinformation. After participants were introduced to fake news, they had to create their own articles using the 6-sentances argumentation model. For each participant, one other participant had to evaluate the written article using a scale of 12 points. Such training methods allowed the young participants to enhance their critical thinking, media literacy, digital skills, leadership skills, self-reflection, empowerment, and engagement in an entertaining way.
During the last day of the training participants learned about digital storytelling and methods of interviewing. The facilitator introduced the European Youth Diary that will be the final result of the VISYON project. Participants were asked to share their personal stories and opinions, to become youth activators themselves and to engage their peers by conducting interviews and collecting other young people’s stories, which can help advocacy of youth and influencing decision-making and the creation of policies especially designed to support youth.