Training course: Train your Disconnection

Location: Italy

Dates: 3-11 June 2019

Number of participants: 20 participants

Participating countries: UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain

Organizer: Vagamondo

Apply here: Application form

Deadline: 30 April 2019, selected immediately given good applicant profile.

Inquiries about this training course: Justinas at hello@abroadship.org

Costs: training course is funded by Erasmus+:

  • 100% accommodation, food and program materials are free, covered by the grant from Erasmus+
  • 100% traveling costs are covered, up to the maximum expenses:
    • €45 / participant for Italy;
    • €275 / participant for UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain.
  • Programme fee is €70, payable immediately after acceptance €20/£17.5 and €50 in Italy.

Train your Disconnection

Train your Disconnection - Italy - Erasmus+ training course - abroadship.org

Are you ready to disconnect? Are you ready to raise awareness about the impact of technologies?

According to the most recent statistics shared by Eurostat, 91% of young people in the EU makes daily use of the internet. The use of social networks and technology within young people in Europe increased in the past years until reaching an average of 6 hours per day, meaning they spend 1/4 of their day on it.

Such amount of time has an impact on the brain functioning and on its development. There is a link between social media and depression, several recent studies have shown that teenage and young adult users who spend most of their free time on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have a relevant higher rate (from 13% to 66 percent) of reported depression than those who make moderate use of them.

According to recent studies, social media dramatically changed the way we communicate, socialize, make and keep friendships. If there are benefits of living in a digital world, there are also risks. Today’s youth miss on critical and social skills development when they spend the majority of their free time connected to and interacting through a screen. They can also get lost in a world of unrealistic models, be victims of cyberbullying and feel left out.

Goal

˝Train your disconnection˝ aims to improve the competences of youth workers in supporting young people in the following areas:

  • Increasing their self-awareness upon their relationship with technology and the impact it has on them
  • Building more healthy habits concerning how they use technology
  • Improving their soft skills

Objectives

  1. Involve actively 20 youth workers from 10 different countries in all phases of the project
  2. Improve knowledge about the impact of the use and abuse of technologies on young people
  3. Experience a digital detox week: heal yourself, take a break from electronic devices for 7 days
  4. Learn new methodologies, design and practice activities that foster direct interaction within young people, healthy lifestyles and the development of soft skills
  5. Improve your competencies in the area of facilitation and youth work
  6. Create and disseminate a booklet with digital detox techniques and original workshops
  7. Implement 1 local activity per country back home to practice and spread what you learned

Programme

The ˝Train your disconnection” project is a mobility for youth workers implemented in three phases. Participating partially cannot be an option as by the regulations of the Erasmus Plus program.

Phase 1: Preparation (May 2019)

The participants prepare for the training course with the support of their sending organizations: they plan the practical aspects of the project, such as travelling, and they participate in the online preparation-tasks happening through the facebook group of the project. During the preparation, the participants, divided in national couples, invent a short activity (15-20 min) that can be an energizer or an ice-breaker connected to the topic of disconnection from technologies and reconnection with oneself. More info will be given while confirming the participants.

Phase 2: Implementation (June 2019)

The second phase of the project is the training course. It involves 20 youth workers from 10 different countries and it takes place in Bergolo, north-west of Italy, from 3rd June 2019 (arrival day) to 11th June 2019 (departure day). The program of this project is developed mainly by non-formal methods, fully involving the participants in the experience: it’s based on the idea that first, we experience ourselves, after, we transmit what we learned to others. Therefore the participants of this training will take part in a number of activities aimed to raise personal awareness, to foster direct interaction with other people and the connection with nature and to build more healthy habits concerning the use of technology. Moreover, the youth workers will experience the effect of staying disconnected from technology for 7 days: they will close all technologic devices (phones, laptops, cameras, watches, music players, etc.) in a safe box and they will take them back 7 days after.

Participants will have the chance to practice and increase their competencies in the field of youth work in relation to the main topic of this project: they will receive some theoretical inputs from the trainers and with their support, they will create their own workshops and activities aimed to create more healthy habits in relation with technology.

Those workshops, together with the original energizers and ice-breakers created in the preparation phase, will be included in a manual that will be used and disseminated by the organizations involved in the project.

Phase 3: Dissemination (July – September 2019)

In this dissemination phase, participants will implement back in their country 1 activity with a group of young people aimed to improve their relationship with technology (using one of the workshops invented during the training or creating a new one) or an activity within the sending organization to share what they learned.

They also fill in the evaluation form, write a testimony of their experience and they will share the booklet that will collect all the games and workshop created during the project. ​

Costs

This program is supported by a co-funding of the European Union allocated by the Erasmus + program. Accommodation, food, materials, the program and the travel costs up to the maximum amount will be covered or reimbursed.

We ask each participant to contribute to the implementation of the program with the amount of €70, of which €20/£17.5 is paid immediately after acceptance and €50 is be paid on arrival in Italy. It’s a sign of real interest, an investment you do in yourself through the project and concrete economic support.

In case that the contribution represents a real obstacle to your participation explain it in the application form.

Traveling reimbursement

In order to be eligible for reimbursement you need to:

  • take an active part in all phases of the project;
  • find the most cost-efficient travel option available to you;
  • provide all required travel documents (flight itinerary and boarding passes, bus and train tickets).

You are allowed to arrive or depart max 2 days before and 2 days after the working days of the training course. Bear in mind that extra days will not be supported with food and accommodation and expenses are not reimbursed. Also, if you stay longer than 2 days before/after your travel costs cannot be reimbursed.

Before booking the tickets for your journey, wait to receive the official confirmation letter, send us your travel plan and wait for our approval. The reimbursement will be sent by bank transference when follow-up activities are completed as a natural closing step of the project, up to the amounts stated below.

Reimbursed traveling expenses are:

  • €45 / participant for Italy.
  • €275 / participant for UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain.

Venue

You can find a map of the place here.

The training will happen in Bergolo, a calm village of 68 inhabitants located on the hills of Piedmont. We will stay in the hostel Alveare (meaning the “The Hive”); the building has a dining area, bedrooms with 2/3/4 beds, a kitchen for groups and a large terrace overlooking the hills. Three meals per day and coffee breaks will be arranged during the program. Together with us in the venue, there will be volunteers of Vagamondo. We, as a group, will be responsible for the caring and cleaning of the spaces that we will be using to keep a friendly and respectful environment, this will happen through a system of daily duties made in international teams.

There will be a common transfer from Torino Porta Susa station to Bergolo and vice versa the day of arrival and of departure.

Train your Disconnection - training course - Italy - abroadship.org

Train your Disconnection – training course – Italy – abroadship.org

The project takes place:

  • L’ALVEARE –  we will sleep and where we will have meals.

  • THEATRE – will be used as a training room.
  • NATURE – that surrounds us.

Participant profile

This project can be something for you if:

  • Your age is min 23
  • You are willing to take an active part in the whole programme, in all the activities and phases of the project
  • You are ready to get involved in non-formal activities for a duration of around 10 hours per day
  • You are able to communicate in English
  • You are officially resident in one of the following countries: Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain or the United Kingdom
  • You will not be benefitting from any other Erasmus Plus fund during the program in Italy (ex. you are not doing the European Voluntary Service)
  • You are a youth worker. For youth worker we mean that you develop activities with and for young people on a regular base.
  • You are interested in gaining new competencies in the field of digital detox and put them in practice with your target group back home
  • You are willing to DISCONNECT and UNPLUG from electronic devices and live in the countryside of Italy without any technology for 7 days

Apply here: Application form