LTTC Diversity & Cohesion – project evaluation
18-28 April 2005, Srasbourg, France
Executive summary:
The long-term training course Diversity and Cohesion was run from March 2004 to April 2005 and involved 28 youth workers/leaders active in developing minority youth participation at local level. The course generated a high level of interest; it attracted applicants active with a wide variety of minority youth groups and organisations across Europe.
In addition to the classical three phases of the LTTC (introduction ands evaluation seminars, practical phase) this course introduced interim meetings to support participants and projects. As with other courses of then DYS where this was introduced, the role of these meetings has been very important and appreciated by the participants. The course was very successful in relation to the quality and the quantity of the local projects initiated and developed by the participants. Only 9% on average were not realised, the vast majority having been fully achieved or being in the process of implementation at the time of the seminar.
» Diversity & Cohesion – Project Documentation 2005 
The most important objectives of the course have been:
- the empowerment and development of participants competences in designing and implementing projects based on Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity;
- the development and implementation of innovative local youth projects on Cultural Diversity and Social Cohesion.
- the European dimension of the participants’ commitment and involvement has been less successful, due certainly to the fact the emphasis for the projects and involvement of the participants has been placed on the local level.
The participants have deeply appreciated and benefited from this training course, with the learning achievements focusing mainly in three areas:
- Project development and project management: the evaluation shows evidence of major gains in skills and knowledge regarding motivating and involving young people, mobilising resources in the organization, fundraising, management and project evaluation. All these are strongly related to the quality of the projects and, given the role of participants there, it is expected that they have a high level of sustainability.
- Soft skills in relation to human rights education and intercultural learning, especially relevant as participants state most progress in the ability to adapting them to the context of their work, communities and organisations.
- By participating in the course, the participants also developed their self-confidence as youth workers and youth leaders. The intensive learning process they went through and the contact with other participants that resulted in getting to know new realities were important factors that contributed to believing in themselves and the work they are doing or want to undertake in their organizations.
From the participants’ evaluations, the team drew the following conclusions and proposals for follow-up:
- The LTTC format and this type of course is very important and has a great potential for the future „all different-all equal” campaign, the course should be reintroduced in 2006 or 2007.
- The work with minority youth leaders/workers should be consolidated through a training for trainers working with Diversity and Cohesion matters; priority should be given to former participants of the LTTCs Participation and Citizenship, Intercultural Learning and Diversity and Cohesion.
- The Directorate of Youth and Sport should consider consistent funding to LTTC projects that qualify for funding from the European Youth Foundation (the pilot projects funding was interrupted half-way through the course).
- The use of the Internet should be considered and reviewed, especially in relation to the preparation of the participants and their projects.
- The diversity in the composition of the group of participants („multi-minorities” and minorities-majorities) should be kept as a major asset and pre-condition for the learning process.
Role of the project
The project played a crucial part in the programme and methodology of the course. The evaluations reflect generally a good understanding of the role of the project and a very positive evaluation of having the course centred on the projects developed by the participants, even if the projects have been also source of stress and frustration for some.
In total, taking into account the participants that attended the consolidation seminar, there were:
- 13 projects fully implemented (63%),
- 6 projects under implementation and development (28%),
- 2 projects cancelled (9%).
The project phase:
The project phase was evaluated in a satisfactory manner overall. A closer look at the forms reveals, however, different individual needs and concerns. This may have to do with:
- the way the projects developed,
- the role the individual trainers assumed in supporting the projects and participants they were in contact with,
- the quality of the communication between the team and the individual participants concerned.
Participants acknowledge that they would need be re-activated or stimulated and the trainers should „check” it more often. Over-reliability on e-mail for communication may have made matters worse in some cases (the Council of Europe should clarify earlier that communication expenses of trainers could be reimbursed).
It is clear that both the trainers and the secretariat should have adopted a systematic communication with the participants – this was done but not in the same way by all trainers and not regularly either. The web site and the newsletter were hardly mentioned as useful tools in this phase, the participants hardly reacted and these two elements had a purely passive communication role.
To be noted that 25% of the participants considered this phase to be too long; only 56% considered it as „Just right”. This percentage reflects the different situations of the participants in relation with the status of the projects and their development.
The Training Programme
At the question „Looking back at the programme of Budapest and Strasbourg….what would you do differently in the programme?” the participants replied as follows:
- Several participants mentioned that they expected more practical information and materials and more workshops, in part more oriented on building training skills;
- 3 persons mentioned that they expected more information on disability issues linked to the theme of the course (e.g. on HRE, HR)
- The concern was expressed that the programme both in Budapest and Strasbourg could be improved /more balanced in terms of the workload, flow and coherency.
- Feedback was controversial: on the one hand, participants said they did not have a chance to participate in the workshops they wanted, on the other hand some had a feeling the reason was lack of motivation/ involvement of other participants. Probably more space and time for reflecting about the choice of workshops (on needs and expectations) was needed as well as more time for reaching consensus, so that the participation in workshops would be more balanced. Some workshops could be run not at the same time and be not only optional.
Among the programme contents that the participants would like to be emphasized or further addressed, they mentioned:
- Deeper conceptual understanding of the HRE, ICL, Diversity and Cohesion.
- More workshops on HRE and ICL.
- Various methods that can be tailored to different target groups such as methods in encouraging youth participation process, involvement.
- More practical skills oriented workshops (such as teambuilding etc.) and training skills.
- Training workshops (design of training programme, training techniques, training of trainers). Some of the participants pointed put that equal and balanced attention should be given to various minority groups and related issues as well as to possibility to reflect or debate on these issues – disability, minority, race, religion, ethnicity etc.
Among the programme contents that the participants believe were superficial or useless, they mentioned:
- Minority organizations\presentations, organizations’ visits and visit to the Council of Europe.
- Debriefing and conclusions of the workshops and simulation exercises should have been more explicit as some participants felt that the workshops/exercises raised more questions or confused them than provided answers. On the other hand, this also raises the question of how much the participants were willing to autonomously reflect on the raised questions themselves in the situations where clear answers/solutions were not or could not be provided.
- Role-playing and sketches were uncomfortable for some participants. This can be related to the participants’ feeling in group and to the unclear understanding the purpose of the sketches as well as to the level of creativity.
On the basis of the comments and suggestions of the participants, we can underline that the team could have provided some more information, background as well as conclusions after some sessions related to the topic of the LTTC in order to clarify and better define the framework and the contents.