Discover what is this course about...

What

Are you ready to learn? Are you willing to participate? Are you eager to explore conflict transformation through online tools?
  1. Introduction/theme
  2. Aims & objectives of the course
  3. Structure and programme
  4. Methodology

When

The next course Youth Transforming Course is to be announced.

How

Practical and Financial Information
  1. Venue
  2. Participants Involvement
  3. Working Languages
  4. Enrolment fee
  5. Scholarships
  6. Certificates








1. INTRODUCTION/THEME
This course consists of a four-week on-line training programme. It brings together existing expertise in conflict transformation within youth work and tried and tested expertise in online learning based on the programme 'Transforming Civil Conflict' of The Network University (offered to professionals in the field since 1999).

The programme will enable participants to critically reflect on the existing practices of conflict transformation within youth work. By asking young people to share and address problems they face in their local contexts, the course will confront them with new ways of thinking and focus on generating new insights that can be further developed and applied to participants. own contexts. To the top

2. AIMS & OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE
The aim of this course is to strengthen the local capacities of young people in peace-building and conflict transformation. By developing access to online training, young leaders will be encouraged to further develop their skills and abilities to deal with conflicts and learn how to make an active difference in their communities.

Objectives:
  • To develop young people's awareness of conflicts relevant to their own socio-economic realities and enable them to explore conflicts and their root causes, conflict transformation as a tool for intervention and by exploring the role young people can play in conflict situations.
  • To develop young leaders' competence to use, adapt and develop skills, methods and tools in conflict transformation relevant to the needs of their local contexts and learn how to multiply them.
  • To increase young peoples capacity to deal with the inter- and intra- personal, community and organisational, cultural, social and political dimensions of conflict.
  • To gain experience in intercultural group thinking and learning by doing, by using online tools.
  • To facilitate an exchange of experience and practice with conflict transformation among youth leaders and experts working at local, national and international levels.
  • To create an online learning environment on conflict transformation and peacebuilding for improving the knowledge, skills and capacities of local youth leaders and increase youth participation and access to learning, by benefiting from online tools as an effective instrument for social transformation.
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3. STRUCTURE and PROGRAMME
The training course will be run during a period of four weeks and will incorporate three main blocks:

Introduction and Naming Conflict
Analysing Conflict
Engaging with Conflict


Each week will require fulfillment of individual and/or group assignments.

Thematically, the course will tackle:
Conflict terminology (use and mis-use), conflict reasoning (conflict mapping and analysis, conflict dynamics), engaging methods and strategies (negotiation techniques), open space technology on conflict, evaluation and follow up.

Other themes may be added according to the participants' interests and main concerns.

The grid below provides a simple overview of the draft programme. The detailed final programme will be sent at a later date to those applicants who have been accepted as participants.

Block 1:
Introduction and naming		 Block 2:
Analysing		 Block 3:
Engaging
Introductions, Expectations, Motivations and GoalsDefinitions and Concepts of conflictPersonal location and interest in conflict Understanding conflict Ways of analysing and mappingTheoretical insights, practical tools and ways to use them Strategies and styles for interventionsWhat tools to use in what situationsEvaluation and Follow Up

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4. METHODOLOGY
The content of the course has been built by using both practical and academic expertise on youth matters and conflict transformation. A group of six trainers from diverse backgrounds have put together a programme, which addresses issues of both theoretical and practical importance, and further focuses on skills training and their application in the specific contexts of the participants. Participation and active involvement of all participants are central to this practice.

The Programme team has been challenged to create a methodology suitable for this type of training. By using a non-formal educational approach towards youth and conflict transformation and by harnessing the e-learning expertise of the Network University (online education), the course content grew into new dimensions that can fulfill the learning needs of both group and individual work.

The specifics of the methodology used in the online training course can be characterised by:
  • Interactive methods (1)
  • Common learning space (2)
  • Cost effectiveness (3)
  • Cumulative approach (4)
  • Action learning (5)
Interactive methods. The course will use a variety of interactive methods of conflict transformation and stimulate critical thinking on why, when and how to apply them, encouraging young people to get engaged and develop and adapt methods in dealing with conflicts in their community.

Common learning space. The course provides participants with a secure space in which they can articulate their ideas without being interrupted by fellow participants or coaches and without being influenced by the approving or disapproving body language of their audience. On-line communication takes place without the usual hierarchy of face-to-face encounters. Participants get to know each other well and are often more inclined to share their thoughts online than 'in real life'. Furthermore, an on-line discussion tends to be more equitable for participants of different culture and socio-economic background.

Cost effectiveness. The course offers a cost-effective way to interact closely with a large number of people at a distance, relatively independent from time and space. Participants can better combine this activity with other work and study obligations and can more easily sustain cooperation between small groups of participants. A virtual course provides the possibility to involve a large number of experts from all over the world, without draining resources on time and travelling.

Cumulative approach. Unlike in pure face-to-face courses, good ideas are all recorded in written form and can therefore easily be integrated in future versions of the programme. In this way it becomes a cumulative collective learning exercise, in which each group of participants can build upon the work of former participants, instead of merely going through the same processes again. Besides building on this cumulative experience, the links to a large number of relevant projects throughout the world help the participants to tap into a vast body of continuously updated information to use it for their own work.

Action learning. Participants are stimulated to put new ideas immediately into practice, while the course is still going on. They can report back the problems that they encounter and get advice from fellow participants, trainers and experts. In this way, they do not experience the emptiness that often follows a face-to-face training course when participants back home realise that the learning experience in a 'laboratory' situation during the course, is remote from their own reality. The online training course enables the participants to apply the acquired knowledge and skills right away as the course unfolds.
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Practical and financial information

Venue
Online Learning Environment
RM. Please note that this course will be hosted online, within the online learning environment built by The Network University. This means that selected participants will be involved from the places they live in exclusively via internet.

Participants Involvement
The online training course is four weeks long. During each week, participants are asked to spend 8-10 hours a week on the course, and to apply their learning in their daily youth work.

Working Languages
The Youth Transforming Conflict Course working language will be English.

Enrolment fee
Date for the next course: to be announced. To participate just in Youth Transforming Conflict costs Euro 400,--.

Scholarships
If you would like to participate in this course and need financial aid, there are a limited number of full and partial scholarships available.
As the starting date for the next course is yet to be announced, we can currently not provide scholarships for Youth Transforming Conflict. More details on scholarships will be available when starting dates for the next course have been announced.

Certificates
Upon a successful completion of the course (active participation and fulfilment of assignments) participants will receive a certificate issued by The Network University with a description of training elements.
Please note, that these certificates are not registered, nor part of a formal education curriculum.

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