THE PROJECT
Nowadays, the nature in which digital youth work is done varies largely between organizations and depends many times on individual youth workers and their skill level. This means there is no unified approach to new media and how to make the most of it for achieving youth goals and addressing youth’s need for improved media literacy.
Among our partners we identified that most of the time the implementation of internet and social media tools is used basely for communication purposes: communication with young people, spread of information, supporting youth’s activities and not so much for media education.
However, in a fast paced world of new media and the insanely rapid development of technologies and new media forms, that is not enough.
Youth workers need to be able to adapt to rapid changes and technologies, have a positive mindset and the necessary skill set to apply all this development to youth work.
The goal of this project was to increase media literacy and digital competences of youth workers and young volunteers and integrate new media into the practices of youth workers.
“New Media in Youth Work” was a project of exchange of good practices under Key Action 2 of Erasmus+ Programme. It was co-funded by the Portuguese National Agency – Erasmus+ Juventude em Ação.
OBJECTIVES
IMPACT
Because of this project, partner organizations and their youth workers developed a systematic approach to the use of new media in their youth work. This will increase their capacity to operate at an international level and address common local needs.
Moreover, the project capacitate youth workers to address new media challenges, such as fake news, politics, hate speech, cyber-bullying etc. by increasing their media literacy, critical thinking and digital competences.
Young people from partner’s communities have also increased their media literacy, critical thinking and digital competences, which will enable them to be safer users of new technologies. They have raised the awareness to these topics inside their communities and have improved their sense of initiative, self-confidence and acceptance as well as boosting social inclusion, unity and tolerance.
PARTNERS
Collaboration was formed by 5 partners from PT, HU, CZ, LT and SK who face similar problems and needs.
ACTIVITIES
During our project we organized 3 activities of mobility. Two short-term joint staff training events in Hungary and Slovakia aimed at increasing the capacity of our youth workers and organizations. And one blended mobility of youth taking place in Portugal aimed at putting to practice the knowledge acquired during the first two trainings, by introducing young participants to different new media platforms and tools as well as rising their awareness to some of its problems: cyber bullying, hate speech, fake news, misinformation and manipulation.
C1 | Media Literacy, Critical Thinking and Digital Competences
The first joint-staff training of New Media in Youth work took place in Hungary and it was dedicated to increase the media literacy, critical thinking and digital competences of youth workers. Designed as a safe place for sharing and exchanging tools, methods, while developing skillset and attitudes how to address media related issues youth are facing in our communities.
We started by discussing the challenges our communities face, namely with digital platforms and new media, how we can contribute to reduce problems such as cyber bullying, fake news, hate speech and the influence it has on young people’s lives. We discussed the challenges we face as organizations to be able to generate more impact, how to reach more young people and actively engage them in our activities.
Later we got the chance to briefly try new media formats like live streaming. The training left us with a bigger picture of the challenge we have up ahead but also was a great opportunity to find a common yet effective approach that our organizations need in order to become more impactful in our communities.
C2 | New Media Tools, Channels and Methods
The second joint-staff training took place in Slovakia and counted with the presence of a lot of our volunteers. The aim was to discuss new media tools, channels and methods we can use to better convey our messages, achieve project visibility.
We created a space to share good practices between youth workers from partner NGOs and defining the best communication and promotion strategies, as well what platforms and new media we can use to do better youth work with our young people in our communities.
The training allowed our youth workers to be more effective in promoting the partner NGOs activities as well as to better include young people in the project creation and coordination phases and in the general activities of each organization.
C3 | Virtual and Blended Mobility of Young People
The goal of having a virtual mobility, besides COVID19 and consequent isolation requirements, was mainly to start creating the self-confidence, to overcome the fears and establish the common relations between young participants. That can help creating the basis for a successful implementation of a physical mobility and helps to guarantee an active engagement from young participants in all stages of the mobility.
It was the case in our project, the online preparation we did allowed our participants to be super focused and engaged in all the stages of the mobility. That said, we have to note that nothing beats a physical mobility, where people can interact live, face to face.
The mobility took place in Portugal and focused on putting in practice most of the knowledge acquired and shared during the first two trainings. Moreover, it was an opportunity to increase media literacy, critical thinking and digital competences of young participants.
Starting with short activities for teambuilding our participants moved on to discuss topics such as cyber bullying, hate speech, fake news. By working in international groups they prepared presentations about the topics. These were livestreamed to reach more young people who could be interested. You can watch below:
Participants discussed the different types of New Media available, its pros and cons and the best practices to use them. Divided in groups they shared their findings about each one of them.
Later participants had the chance to try different new media formats. namely video, podcasts and also to produce their own multi-camera live streaming shows. These shows were broadcasted on Facebook, YouTube and Twitch and are also available below:
Livestream of the first group. Topic: Erasmus+ and New Media Issues
Livestream of the second group. Topic: Virtual Reality
Finally, participants had the chance to try VR, many for the first time as well as a session about drone videography. And because it’s not just about technology and digital media, we had time to have fun, exchange and share our cultures with each other during Intercultural Nights.
RESULTS
GUIDELINES FOR GOOD COMMUNICATION
This short guide is one result of this project and it aimed to create a common approach, a set of guidelines for NGO communication and promotion using various new media platforms.
What you will find inside this guide is not written in stone, but it is what we concluded, during the two years of the project, to be the best practices for our specific organization’s needs and goals.
To complement it we have produced a few documents you can find below.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
PROJECT PROMOTION PLAN
SCHEDULE PLANNER
VIDEO GUIDELINES
LINK INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK (USING CREATOR STUDIO)
USING EMBEDS ON DISCORD (MEE6 BOT)
LINK AGGREGATORS (LINKTREE)
POSTING ON FACEBOOK (USING CREATOR STUDIO)
