EKO is happy to announce that one more amazing training course has been successfully completed. The project “EOYO” united 30 young participants from Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Malta, Moldova, Romania, Spain and Turkey. It was coordinated by the Romanian Organization ADA, and took place in Slanic Moldova, Romania from 23 of February to 8th of March 2023. 

Aims & Objectives of the project

1. – To develop the communication management skills of 30 youth workers from 10 different organizations and their ability to develop and implement a communication and dissemination strategy.
2. – To equip youth workers with the tools, methods, and competences to efficiently develop and use online communication materials.
3. – To increase the online visibility of youth organizations.
4. – To develop among youth workers digital skills for internal and external communication, including fundraising abilities.
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Activities of the project per day through the eyes of the participants

First of all, we played a few name games as well as some get to know each other and team-building activities in order to break the ice and feel comfortable among them. We also expressed our expectations, fears and contributions to the project. Last but not least, we formed our reflection groups where we will reflect on our learning experience for the rest of the project. By participating in these activities, we developed intimacy, analytical thinking, community building and teamwork.

Secondly, we got introduced to key concepts of our project such as communication, non-formal education and non-formal education cycle. We got informed about the Youthpass certificate and competences in an interactive session. We continued by expressing the current situation of the communication process in our organizations and we presented the ideal communication team with our group. Last but not least, after some practical arrangements we bonded more by participating in a human library. These activities lead to us developing empathy, creativity and we enhanced public speaking and teamwork. We learned about Erasmus +, non-formal education. 

In addition, we had an interesting session about social change theories and how NGOs implement them in practice. We got to know each country’s organization better and we focused on creating a vision on the level of communication as well as understanding the benefits of creating a communication strategy. Last but not least, we used a SWOT analysis regarding the communication strategies of our organizations.  As a result, we developed our :analytical thinking, reasoning, our ability to communicate in a foreign language and our  adaptability. We raised:awareness of the youth work in other countries as well.

Moreover, we talked about the role of objectives to our vision, their importance and the characteristics they should have. In addition, we reflected on how and why we target audiences and we created personas we want to reach with our communication strategies. Last but not least, we analyzed our network by making a stakeholder mapping. We ended the day with a fun 

Intercultural night. We developed time management skills,analytical thinking, teamwork, coordination skills and leadership skills. We raised our Intercultural awareness and we learnt how to collaborate with people from different cultural backgrounds as well.

Furthermore, we discussed the effectiveness of the communication strategies of various actors such as media, authorities etc. by using the method of world cafe. We played a game of simulation as well with the aim of drawing conclusions about intercultural communication. Last but not least, we learnt how to connect with ourselves and others and we had fun in another intercultural night. The skills we developed were non-violent communication, efficient conversation skills, intercultural communication and problem-solving. In addition, we learned how to build relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds. 

What is more, we focused on campaigning skills. More specifically, we learned useful tips for a successful campaign as well as the steps to create it. In addition, we simulated a press conference to reach conclusions about the fake news and to learn how to spot them. Moreover,   we had the chance to hear about a success story for campaigns and we started working on the branding identity of our organizations. Last but not least, we created the key messages of our campaigns developing critical thinking, argumentation, campaigning skills and analytical skills.

In addition, we focused on creating content for our campaigns. We were assigned to create audiovisual content, for example visual content including the problem, our ways to solve it and call to action. We were assigned as well to create an audio intro for our podcast and various videos such as an interview, a TikTok reel and a story. They let us organize our work schedule, which was a great way to enhance our coordination, communication and time management skills and problem-solving skills. We learned how to create multimedia content.

Discovering Romania was also a part of the project. To be specific, we went on a day trip to Sinaia and Brasov. We spent some time together, we visited the Peles castle and we explored the city of Brasov. Some of us viewed Brasov from the mountains  and others went shopping. We learned how to write articles as an option for creating content. We worked as well on creating our plan for the internal communication of our organization.

Furthermore, we learned about fundraising and evaluating strategies. We reflected on how to organize a successful fundraising and we performed a SWOT analysis regarding this topic. In addition, we talked about performance indicators as a way for an efficient evaluation. Moreover, we discussed dissemination and its importance. Last but not least, we played Abigail’s game in order to reflect on our values.

We summed up the project by putting together all of our previous work during the project regarding building a communication strategy. The organizers let us self-organize our time to complete the task which was a great way to develop our time management skills and our coordination skills.  

Finally, we wrapped up our project mainly by reflecting the major competences we developed during the project using the 8 key competences of YouthPass. Furthermore, we completed the evaluation for the whole project. Last but not least, we will officially finish the project with a Youthpass and Oscar ceremony.

An amazing opportunity and great experience for EKO’s team

Ilektra, Georgia, Stavros, Antonis and Petros were the members of this amazing Greek team whom we really wanna thank for all their contribution and collaboration throughout the project!

As EKO, we are very grateful for that amazing opportunity given to the Greek team and we thank our partner Victor Toma and the rest members of the hosting organization for all their hard work and for creating such an impactful project!