My Training Project "EVS Garden"
29 September - 5 October, 2010
Tynec na Sazavou, Czech Republic

EVS garden was the initiation and creation of the three trainers (Lilit Simonyan (Armenia), Helca Metelkova (Czech Republic) and Ekaterina Sherer (Russia)) involved in TALE (Trainers Learning Active in Europe) long-term trainers program of European Youth Partnership. It was supported and administered by the Czech National Agency of Youth in Action Program.

The trainers used a metaphoric approach to the topic of learning process in EVS. EVS Garden is a beautiful place, where there is learning together how to help the EVS volunteers to grow, how to support them in their growing, what is the quality fertilising and watering, when is the right timing for garden work, how to recognize the ripe fruit, how to pick them and how use them later.  The training connected „gardeners“ – mentors,  coordinators and ex-EVS volunteers from EU countries and EECA region (Eastern Europe and Caucasus) to share practice, experiences, skills and knowledge and learn how to support the development and growing of their EVS volunteers.

The GOAL of the Training Course was  to enhance the quality in EVS projects and development of key competences in Action 2, Youth in Action programs, by using NFE tools and methods among main actors in EVS projects focusing on EU and EECA region.

The PRIORITIES for the training were identified as:

Priority 1: Support volunteer growth and learning process

Priority 2: Partnership Building

The content of the program was based on the objectives and priorities identified by the trainers and Czech National Agency as well as the needs and expectations of the selected participants. Accordingly, the main elements of the program were:

-          Reflecting on own EVS experience

-          Exchange of EVS experience and realities

-          How do people learn and main learning styles

-          How to support learning of EVS volunteer

-          EVS and key competences

-          How to work with youth pass

-          Partnership building EECA and Programme Countries

-          Personal space for participants reflection

The program was based on the following methodological principles

í  Aquire knowledge by getting inputs from trainers, resource people, peer-participants and oneselve (internal insights)

í  Develop skills and attitudes by workshops, practical activities and plenary discussions, during the programme (based on non-formal learning) and in breaks or free time (informal learning)

í  Build the program on sharing experience and expertise with trainers, resource people, and peer trainees.

í  Give attention to learning processes: provide space for discussions, group feedback conversations and individual daily reflection

We had 13 participants from Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Romania, Turkey and Sweden. These was an amazing group to work with - bringing diverse backgrounds on the table, being very motivated and a fun group in general.

What I learnt during the training course?

- Motivation makes such a difference!

- Metaphors and associative topics can make the training so colorful, fun and effective.

- I explored various concepts of training evaluation strategies and how they can potentially be incorporating into a training course.

- Enlarged my trainer's repertoire with new training tools and methods.


- It takes more effort to work with people I have never worked with before. Clarifying expectations, setting up work approach, being tolerent and welcoming to different working styles and habits and appreciating the contribution of each member is very important.
- Got an "updated" sense of my strengths and weaknesses as a trainer.