In April 2023, the “Power Youth Up” project implemented training for Trainers  in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife (Spain). For 7 days, 15 Youth Workers from the project’s partner entities experimented and analysed methodologies developed to foster creativity and enhance the connection of young people in the dynamization of community spaces. Each partnership presented its methodologies and contexts in order to share the best practices developed by the organisations.

The host organisation was P.O.D. who works on the island of Tenerife with young people from different communities in Santa Cruz. The training was co-managed and facilitated by youth workers from the Portuguese organisations – YouthCoop and Novo Mundo.

In the first  day, the Youth Workers had the opportunity to get to know the reality of Puerto de la Cruz, visiting spaces dedicated to youth and getting to know the relationship between the locals and the historic centre. Non-formal education methodologies were used to streamline this action, in a rally-paper format. On this day, youth workers also had the opportunity to review project and training objectives.

In the following two days, Greek, Romanian, Italian and Portuguese organisations offered moments to experience the activities developed, present results and collect feedback from partners. This was a time to analyse potentialities, share good practices and develop high quality methodologies in the areas of creativity and youth participation. The different partner organisations demonstrated a plurality of activities that resorted to artistic practices, development of critical thinking, use of collaboration games.

On the fourth day, the group had the opportunity to travel to the city of Santa Cruz, the capital of the island, to visit different educational projects developed in areas of social vulnerability with youth and in partnership with local schools. These local projects are developed in partnership with the hosting organisation, POD, which encourages the development of communities through the promotion of non-formal education, volunteering and local networking. During the afternoon of that day, the group visited the workspaces of the POD organisation, where they experienced the methodologies developed to work on self-esteem, communication with the group and emotional education.

On the fifth day, the day was for experimenting with the methodologies developed by the Portuguese organisation Youth Coop, which activities worked  on issues of sustainability and plastic recycling.

The afternoon was dedicated to rest of  the facilitating team and free time for the participants, offering an opportunity to get to know the city of Puerto de la Cruz and the culture of the Canary Islands better.

The last days were dedicated to the organisation of tasks and the implementation of pilot activities after the training. This type of event is an opportunity to streamline work, promote spaces for dialogue and joint work between partners. To close the training, the thermometer methodology was used, enhancing the collection of opinions, ideas and suggestions from the participants.

The evaluation made by the participants resulted in in learning new methodologies to be used in the contexts of each partner, development and reflection on the work carried out within the scope of the “Power Youth Up” project, responses to challenges felt when working with different groups of young people.

In conclusion, this training provided Youth Workers with competences  to work on creativity in different areas (artistic, spatial exploration, development of critical thinking, reflection on topics that are of interest to young people) and how this is an attraction to bring young people closer to community spaces. It was a key moment of the Power Youth Up project, as it allowed bringing together youth workers from each country to dialogue, recognize and collaborate to improve their professional practices.

The Power Youth Up project is funded by the European Erasmus + programme.