Internationale stage: zeker doen !

By guest editor: Nadia Hagenbeek

Het vakgebied Social Work in Nederland is erg uitgebreid: veel verschillende organisaties en instanties. Toch zijn er bepaalde normen en waarden die bijna overal gelden. Dit komt door de Westerse samenleving waarin wij opgroeien en ontwikkelen. Voor ons professionals heeft de samenleving een grote invloed op het handelen: op school worden bepaalde modellen aangeleerd en methodieken uitgeprobeerd. Deze nemen wij mee in ons proces tot professional.

In andere landen, zeker buiten Europa, gelden andere normen en waarden. Mensen kijken anders naar elkaar en staan anders in de samenleving. Social Work krijgt hierdoor een andere rol en van de professional vraagt dit andere vaardigheden. Een internationale stage is een unieke kans om verder te komen en verder te kijken dan onze Westerse wereld.

Voor een internationale stage is het belangrijk dat je nieuwsgierig en onderzoekend bent. Dat je uit je comfortzone durft te gaan omdat je een andere wereld in duikt. Dat je open staat voor ervaringen en om kunt gaan met anderen.

Zelf heb ik stage gelopen op het Tikondane Community Centre in Zambia. Ik was hier juffrouw in de Early Childhood Class en gaf lessen aan opvoeders. Tijdens mijn stageperiode heb ik veel geleerd door gesprekken met de lokale bevolking. Tevens kon ik mijn kennis weer delen met de mensen daar. Vaak kreeg ik hier waardering en lof voor. Hiernaast heb ik geleerd om contact te maken zonder verbale taal: een vaardigheid die in Nederland minder nodig is, maar niet minder belangrijk.

Tijdens een internationale stage krijg je nieuwe inzichten wat betreft professioneel handelen en leer je jezelf profileren. Hiernaast zorgt een internationale stage voor persoonlijke groei door de hoge mate van zelfstandigheid. Je leert op je eigen benen staan.

Een internationale stage maakt het verschil, omdat het de kans biedt om in een andere cultuur te werken en te wonen. Hiernaast zal je veel leren van de mensen die je ontmoet en de manieren van handelen en omgang, zoals die daar gewoon zijn. En wat misschien nog wel het belangrijkst is: het is super tof!

Een internationale stage: zeker doen !

Transnational SYL meeting in Palermo

Palermo was the venue our hosts from Prism (International Promotion Sicily-World) had chosen for the first transnational meeting on their recently awarded new Erasmus + project entitled Sustain Your Life through Social Entrepreneurship.

The project aims to contribute to the exchange of good practices and the creation of a beneficial learning environment to encourage and enable youth workers and young people from Italy, Portugal, Romania, Lithuania, The Netherlands and Spain to recognise the value and pursue the opportunities that social entrepreneurship offers.

The project is designed to promote and support social entrepreneurship as a sustainable way of addressing the challenges that Europe is facing at the moment with the after-effects of the financial crisis and high levels of youth unemployment.  
The overall approach is to engage youth workers and young people in developing key competences in such a way that they are empowered to turn their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas into a reality and act as ambassadors of sustainable development, social innovation and growth in their local and global communities.

The project envisages the development and provision of tools and innovative training activities drawing on non-formal education methodologies in order to develop key skills for social entrepreneurship. Besides training courses in Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal as well as multiplier events in all participating countries, the results will be shared in a digital booklet and find their way to an open learning portal in order to sustain the project outcomes beyond the duration of the project and allow the re-use of the materials that were developed and brought together.

As in most transnational meetings all the participants were awarded a certificate of attendance at the end of the long "working weekend" of 15 - 18 January, 2016.





This project has been funded with support of the European Commission. This communication reflects only the author's view and the European Commission and the National Agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

MEDART kicks off

From October 2015 onwards the school of social work is involved in a new European project, under the project leadership of the Slovak organisation Divadlo Bez Domova.

MEDART is a transnational project of 8 European organisations and institutions focused on creating a methodical guide for education of socially disadvantaged adults by using theatre and dramatherapeutical approaches and techniques. The partnership will find, create and use theatrical practices, techniques and methods, which will help to dramatically increase disadvantaged adults´ chances of getting a job.

The basic rationale behind the project is that non-formal and informal education methods that are applied in dramatherapeutical work can be used for the acquisition, training, enhancing and empowering of skills and competences that can increase adult learners' employability. To be more specific, education in the field of social skills like self-knowledge, self-appraisal, self-confidence, communication skills, empathy, assertiveness, giving and receiving feedback, cooperation skills, decision making, conflict management, problem solving skills, creative thinking etc.

The result of the project will be an open educational resource – a methodical guide (PDF file) disseminated via online platforms, social networks, partner organisations´ websites, eventually by allied websites.

The major target groups for the methodical guide will be teachers, educators, trainers, drama therapists, social workers, students, schools, universities, institutions, NGOs and to everyone who is interested in working with socially disadvantaged people. Besides this, the project will have a direct impact on disadvantaged people involved in the theatre exercises as they will significantly increase their social skills and competences.

These are the project partners for MEDART:

Divadlo bez domova (Slovakia, coordinator)

Bielskie Stowarzyszenie Artystyczne Teatr Grodzki (Poland)

ProSoc - drustvo za implementacijo projektov in razvoj socialnega podjetnistva (Slovenia)

Acta community theatre ltd (United Kingdom)

Magyar Vöröskereszt Budapest Fovárosi Szervezet (Hungary)

Asociación cultural, social, de salud y bienestar ACUNAGUA (Spain)

Centro per lo sviluppo creativo DANILO DOLCI (Italy)

Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences/ Hogeschool Rotterdam (Netherlands) 

Here are some of the visuals of the kick off meeting in Bratislava, work in progress.
More pictures can be found here. 

This project has been funded with support of the European Commission. This communication reflects only the author's view and the European Commission and the National Agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Can & Do , a TC in retrospect

Last July Palermo was the venue for a European Training Course that brought together 32 youth workers, youth leaders, youth advisors & peer educators, staff of intermediary organizations and social activists working with young people. Participants from 12 different European countries took part in an 8-day training course that was based on the themes of entrepreneurship, innovation, culture, creativity and the development of a “can-do” attitude.

The basic rationale behind the Training Course was that young human and social capital can be enhanced by unfolding essential aspects of an entrepreneurial and innovative culture, by developing a “can-do” attitude and applying creative methods to attain this.

All TC activities were carried out through non-formal and informal methodologies, such as the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach (RMA) as well as creative thinking and learning approaches through art. Apart from this, some theoretical sessions were integrated, in an interactive mode. The main outcome can be described as an enhanced understanding of European themes like youth unemployment in our knowledge-based society and economy, human and social capital, sustainability and inclusion.  But also a better understanding of how to apply non-formal education methods with youngsters in developing a more creative, innovative and entrepreneurial spirit leading to self-confidence and a can-do attitude.

Apart from this, it must be said that participation in European training courses like these generally tend to lead to a better understanding of how other European countries struggle with similar issues and tackle, in this case, youth unemployment. Acquiring  broader perspectives on common European issues is an important step towards more solidarity and inclusion in times like these where Europe is faced with a number of difficult issues and has to conquer numerous challenges.

Once again we saw two participants (Amina and Nicky) returning home to our university of applied sciences with fresh ideas and an enriching experience due to the CAN & DO training course. For this we’d like to express our thanks here to the TC coordinator, Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo “Danilo Dolci” (Italy) as well as the other participants from Azerbaijan, Georgia , Greece, Moldavia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.

This TC was made possible with funds from Erasmus+, KA1 : Learning Mobility of Individuals, more specifically mobility of youth workers.

Here are some photos of the session where our 2 participants shared their experiences in the course and disseminated what they’d learned during the TC in Palermo.