During the 8th to 15th of October 2021, Sunrise Project France will host the seminar Future-proof youth work with digital skills. The seminar brings together 30 youth workers from nine countries: France, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey.

As a mobility of youth workers, the project addresses the needs of the participants to explore what are the key technological developments or ‘megatrends’ that youth organisations should all be aware of and how will these developments affect young people and their future.

The seminar aims to create a space where to explore the technological, social and cultural impact of digitalisation in the context of youth, and to map and address the opportunities and risks associated with technological development.

The reason the partner organisations from 9 countries are reunited in this seminar is to explore how youth work can benefit from digital media and technology. In the seminar, the participants will be able to explore how digital youth work can be included in their organisations’ youth work strategies via good practice examples and practical tools.

The activities also aim to raise awareness of how digitalisation is shaping the societies, including its impact on youth work and on young people, to understand the terminology of digital youth work, to familiarise with concepts and youth work approaches to young people using social media. The sessions will allow participants to explore in depth concepts of digital and smart youth work, and how they can help in meeting the opportunities and overcoming the current and future challenges faced by youth work. The sessions will approach topics such as: digitalisation of societies and impact on youth work, understanding different realities of digital youth work in participating countries and the latest European-level policy development.

Participants will also work during the seminar on how to enhance youngster’s technology related skills. Through real-life case studies and resources youth workers will explore how to help young people manage their online identity and digital information required for their work. Youth workers will get strategies on how to develop in their NGOs educational programs to assist young people to create digital content. Participants will also discover the European Digital Competence Framework, which offers a tool to improve citizen’s digital competence.

The methodology applied in this seminar will include sharing good practices, interactive sessions and online tools – all based on non-formal education methods. Participants will learn, explore and exchange about the various forms and best practices of “digital youth work”. Through discussion and workshops participants will benefit from valuable information and from exchanges with other participants on a variety of topics including information and data literacy, problem solving by using digital tools, online safety and many more. They will have the opportunity to discuss and formulate the needs and wishes for the digital youth work.

During the planned days of the mobility, we will be sharing with you real-time pictures and videos so stay tuned on our social media to follow how the project develops!

The project is a Seminar – Mobility of Youth Workers, funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. It is coordinated by Sunrise Project France, a non-governmental organisation aiming to help youth and adults to reach their full potential and find inner joy.