Weaving songs and stories

<< Background >>For the last few years, we were inspired by how Singing fosters Social Inclusion and the Sense of Belonging and how Storytelling Empowers and Transforms youth. That gave us the urge to create this very project, which brought forth into youth work 2 innovative, qualitative and scarcely used enchanting methods, Singing and Storytelling.While we were writing and preparing the application of this project, we had a vision in our heads that we wanted to implement, a vision of an inspiring, enchanting and impactful ways to work with youth and of course, a vision of supporting thoroughly, methodically and holistically youth workers to do so. The needs we addressed through this project were:For YOUTH:• social inclusion• empowerment• acquirement skills & competence• creativityFor YOUTH WORKERS:• new innovative methods to use in their work• more engaging methods to use with youth• more effective and impactful methods to foster social inclusion• methods that can be used in online learning activities too.<< Objectives >>The objectives of this project were:• To introduce into youth work 2 innovative methodologies, based on storytelling and music that can be used for the inclusion of youth• To equip youth workers with professional competences (knowledge, skills & attitudes) for using the 2 methodologies in order to foster the social inclusion of youth• To increase the capacity of youth organizations to work transnationally and to better address the local/national needs for social inclusion• To disseminate the project results among youth NGOs, stakeholders, youth workers and to the general public<< Implementation >>The activities we implemented in this project were:•2 Intellectual Outputs:O1: Online learning course on Storytelling Methodology, available on youtube under the name “Weaving Stories – Online Course”O2: Online learning course on Music Methodology, available on youtube under the name “Weaving Songs – Online Course”•1 Training activity:C1: an in depth, residential & experiential training for 20 youth workers who were trained to master the methods of storytelling and music•2 Multiplier Events:E1 & E2: conference type workshops done in Cyprus and Romania for youth workers, key stakeholders in which the Outputs were shared and explained•3 Transnational Meetings:M1,2,3 for experts to meet & work and coordinate the project<< Results >>Tangible results:•The “Weaving Stories - Online course”: an open access course for youth workers in order to learn the methodology of using storytelling in youth work. It can be found here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEN_vzTjAvFliCgXp9S5ZZ9DgW6_MALES •The “Weaving Songs - Online course”: an open access course for youth workers in order to learn the methodology of using Music in youth work. It can be found here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEN_vzTjAvFnVirsZI5F8ifa3q01ZbCl3 •Numerous social media posts, articles, press articles, etc for sharing information about the project, its activities and its results with youth workers, teachers, youth, publicIntangible results:•Increased competences of 129 youth workers with whom we directly worked with (20 from C1, 109 from E1 & E2)•Improved capacities of partners, and especially Inspiration Path•innovation & quality in youth work, by introducing new innovative methods and tools to use•social inclusion for youth, by training youth workers to offer activities inspired by Stories and Songs that foster the social inclusion •increased knowledge and tools of 5000+ youth workers from Cyprus, Romania and EU & 5000+ teachers in Cyprus who received the online courses