Today marks the middle of the first phase seminar of the Long-term training course for youth trainers from the Russian Federation involved in educational activities with young people based on non-formal education.

The training-seminar was launched on 22 November 2019 in the Moscow region, where, out of 130 applicants, the 31 selected participants met for an informal welcome evening.

Organisations dealing with youth work and youth policy at local, regional and international levels and from different regions of the Russian Federation, from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin, sent youth workers and trainers to develop their competences in non-formal education (NFE).

In these first days of the seminar, the participants have been familiarised with the principles and approaches of NFE and the differences between that and other types of learning, they explored their particular situations and realities from the perspective of the role of NFE in the youth policy field, they assessed their skills through the youth trainer competences framework, became acquainted with human rights education and have begun to develop their own project ideas which they will then implement during the youth educational activities in the practice phase, within the criteria and quality standards of Council of Europe Youth Department activities.

Following the first phase seminar, the participants will continue their learning process through on-line exercises, mentoring meetings and peer-support groups. The practical phase will be held from March to September 2020. Two more face-to-face training seminars will be held in 2020: the mid-term meeting in March in the Russian Federation and the evaluation consolidation training seminar in October at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg, France.

The aim of the Long-term training course is to improve the quality of educational activities in the field of youth work in the Russian Federation, through extending the network of trainers with the necessary competences for such work, sharing the principles and values of non-formal education and using the quality standards of the Council of Europe.

This activity is a part of the Action Plan of the 2014-2019 Framework Programme on cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Russian Federation in the field of youth policy.

Co-organisers of the training course are the Council of Europe Youth Department and the National Youth Council of Russia, with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.