Review on Training Course on outdoor education for youth workers “LABIRINT”

Erasmus+ Training Course
17-24 April 2019 | Sondershausen, Germany
20-28 July 2019 | Baikal Lake, Russia

The “LABIRINT Training Course on outdoor education for youth workers” was a great opportunity for the youth workers actively working with young people to discover outdoor education and adventure-based learning, to develop their competencies and to apply them in their practices, especially in relation to empowering young people with fewer opportunities at local level. The main aim of this long term training course was to train youth workers on how to use outdoor education for addressing current challenges of nowadays and building so called soft competences and skills, such as respect, efficient ommunication, tolerance, non-judgment approach, ability to work in teams and critical thinking.

This training course consists of three parts:

1. The 1st activity was the training course “OutDoor inAction” that took part in Sondershausen, Germany from 17 to 24 April 2019. This training allowed the participants to learn about outdoor experiential learning by trying out different forms of outdoor learning and acquire the set of competences needed for a youth worker when working with outdoor activities. We have learnt to develop, design, plan, implement and evaluate outdoor and experiential learning activities and to understand and handle risk and safety in outdoor settings.
2. The first activity was followed by the local phase, which was the 2nd part, where participants though practice gained skill in local realities.
3. The 3rd activity was a seminar “Out Door in Youth Work” that took part on Baikal lake, Russia from 20 to 28 July 2019. The event focused on the ways of balanced incorporation of outdoor education into work with young people with fewer opportunities. Based on the 2nd part of the project and our previous experience, we have shared good practices and challenges of integration of outdoor education in youth work with diverse groups in the field of youth empowerment. We discussed different approaches to experiential learning, outdoor education and tested new models, tools and instruments in outdoor education and experiential learning. The event was chance to plan the future international cooperation.