At the same time as the European Youth Forum Trogen, 15 youth workers from different countries came together in the Children's Village to discuss methodologies and best practices and create valuable synergies.
"My parents were also involved in youth work and I wanted to carry on the family tradition," explains a participant from the Youth Worker Forum at the European Youth Forum Trogen. The 15 youth workers sit together in a circle of chairs and listen intently to how youth work is organised in Lisbon. The Youth Worker Forum at the EYFT is a new format that was organised for the first time at the same time as the EYFT. The new project was immediately well received. "Unfortunately, we were only able to invite 15 participants out of 1000 applications," says Lukrecija Kranz, Project Manager at the Pestalozzi Children's Village. She adds: "Thanks to the diversity, everyone can benefit from each other. Be it on a professional level, in terms of methodology or interpersonally". The aim of the project is to create new ideas and partnerships across national borders.
Some of the participants come from the delegations that also took part in the EYFT. However, not all of them - including Nik, who travelled all the way to Switzerland from California and was really inspired by the exchange. In addition to intensive exchange sessions, the youth workers also visited the various youth clubs in the area and organised the leisure programme for the young people on Wednesday evenings together with the Talhof St. Gallen team. They were also able to summarise their experiences in a podcast on powerup_radio and pass them on to their organisations back home. In addition to the professional exchange, all the youth workers lived in the same house. For Samuel Zimmermann, who shared the house with the youth workers and is himself a youth worker at the Pestalozzi Children's Village, this was a valuable experience: "We have a great group that is well mixed in terms of age, background and social components. Many enriching discussions arose in the evening in the house and I can feel how grateful the group is for this experience."
