Documenta started on September 4th the Community Animateur Foundation Course, within the COMANITY project whose main beneficiaries are young people at risk of exclusion or who feel at the margins of the system.
Workers and youth volunteers of Amica, La Columbeta, 14 Kilómetros, Padre Meni, Aplec (inclusion + equality) and Agentes de la Calle participate in the training workshops of the Community Animateur Foundation Course. At the end of the course they will acquire the skills and competences needed to become a successful Community Animateur and they will put them in practice through a Participatory Action Research carried out together with young people. The different actions will be shared in the Comanity Hub, a meeting point and learning inclusive environment for the different organisations and youth workers from other countries and the partners of the Comanity project.
The COMANITY Training Programme combines self-directed learning supporting youth workers and volunteers to learn at their own pace, through ‘scaffolding’, with collaborative learning methods (in online groups and with the COMANITY team) to:
· generate their own learning content, using their practice experiences
· share their experiences and learning
· apply it in practice, through on-line Assignments and in ‘Action Learning workshops’
· assess their progress, through self-assessment, external assessment from the COMANITY
The training programme covers:
- Community Animateur Foundation course. This is a modular on-line course comprised of modules that link to the three ‘competence domains’ in the competence framework – Emotional Intelligence; Community Animateur-specific competences and Digital-enabling Competences.
- Knowledge Space: The COMANITY HUB – a collaborative learning space for learners and training team to share comments, questions, feedback and upload content, using blogs and other social media, and the COMANITY discussion forum
- Applied Learning – trainees carry out an Assignment, applying the learning from the programme to design a Community Animateur activity, related to their own practice, and take part in Action Learning workshops, delivered by the Programme team
- Monitoring and Support – each trainee is assigned a mentor from the project team, who will be responsible for monitoring the learners progress providing on-line support as required
- Assessment and accreditation – at each milestone stage in the programme (completing a core module; completing an assignment) learning outcomes will be assessed. Learning outcomes and progression are accredited and certified by COMANITY.
COMANITY is a project funded under the EU’s ‘Erasmus+’ programme (2017-2019). Its main objective is to train youth workers and volunteers for a new role in youth work – the ‘Community Animateur’.
The Community Animateur’s role will be to bridge the existing gap between young people on the margins and ‘mainstream’ institutions by acting as a “Social Mediator”. Community Animateurs come from the community, and are trusted by their peer group. They act as a point of mediation between young people who don’t trust ‘the system’ and the system itself.
The COMANITY project is currently developing sessions, meetings and collaborative projects that associations and participants are developing together with the young people in their fields of action.
Further information about the Comanity project in this link.
