Transcript Characteristics of Open Youth Work

OPEN YOUTH CENTRE AND
OPEN YOUTH WORK
EYCU
Karin Tõnts
Main aim of Open Youth Centre
(OYC)
• To be the main youth work executor and expander
in Local Municipality
• To help young people in their socialising process
throuth Open Youth Work (OYW) method
• To support youth initative
Youth Work Act
which came into force 1 April 1999
• a young person is a natural person between 7 and
26 years of age;
Youth work
• is the creation of conditions for young people for
activities which facilitate their development and
enable them to be active outside their families,
curricula and work on the basis of their free will.
• The content of youth work is the social, cultural
and health education of young people which
promotes the mental and physical development of
young people.
OYW offers young people
opportunities like*:
• Education- Enabling young people to gain skills,
knowledge and attitudes needed to identify, advocate
and pursue their rights and responsibilities as
individuals and as members of groups and communities
locally, nationally and internationally.
• Promotion of Equality of Opportunity- Challenging
oppressions such as racism and sexism, as well as
oppressions which spring from differences of culture,
race, language, sexual identity, gender, disability, age,
religion and class, and celebrating the diversity and
strength which arise from those differences.
• Participation-Through a voluntary relationship with
young people, in which young people are partners in the
learning process and decision making structures which
affect their own and other young people’s lives and their
environment.
• Empowerment- Supporting young people to understand
and act on the personal, social and political issues which
affect their lives, the lives of others and the communities
of which they are a part.
The core values of OYW*
• Young people have the right to identify options/choices
and choose the most appropriate one of them in any given
situation.
• Each young person should be given the support to achieve
their full potential in a manner that has regard for the
dignity and autonomy of the individual.
• Young people should be supported to develop their own
values and attitudes, and to develop the capacity to analyse
critically the world around them and to take action in
response.
Characteristics of Open Youth Work*
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OYW is a educational experience implemented
outside of the formal school curriculum
OYW is an active mode of learning which promotes
an experiential learning model
OYW seeks to raise the level of awareness of young
people about society and how to act upon it;
OYW involves young people on a voluntary basis
and begins with the issues and areas of interest and
concern to them;
OYW is mutually beneficial, enjoyable and fun
experience for youth workers and young people;
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OYW is a partnership between youth workers,
young people in a manner that prioritises the active
participation of young people as partners in the
process;
OYW provides for young people participate in
decision-making planning, organising and
evaluating;
OYW enables communities to contribute to
meeting the needs of their own people;
OYW is accessible to young people irrespective of
their race, culture, creed, gender, sexual orientation
or disability.
*ECYC
O+Y+C
OPEN –
• It’s open in suitabe time for youth and youth
work
• It’s open for every youth, whos follows the rules
of centre
• It’s open for the ideas of youth
• It’s open for the Youth Unions, yoth workes and
partners to fulfil the aim of youth work
• It’s open min 20 h per week
YOUTH– Activities in the centre depends of their will
– They greate and follow the rules of centre
– They are the decision makers and they have the
responsibility of activities in the centre
– They have all changes to get professional support
of their problems and ideas
CENTRE– Place, where coneverging all the youth voluntary
joint action in the area of centre
– Place, what offer possibilities plus has arranging
function
– Is a main partner for Local Government in youth
work
• OYC does not replace any other youth work institute (
like hobby school, information centre, sport clubs..)
• OYC can be an structure unit of some other social- or
cultural institution
Exellent OYC
• Has a mission and amis
- Development and action plan to achive it and all
charches are made to achive the aims (suistanability)
• Youth are actively involved to the development of
project ideas composition and fulfilment of the projects
(co managment)
• Youth have activ part of resume and report
• Youth worker/s have all the nessesery competence
• Councels, cares, educates its workers and voluntareers
• Involves different intrest groups and partners (network)
Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things that you
didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from
the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds
in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
(Mark Twain)