The training course was implemented with the involvement of 24 artists and yourh workers from the participating organisations to share know-how and experience the methods within the project. For the evaluation purposes the training aims were set as follows :
- To create an awareness on the social issues among youth workers and artists
- To test out the new and innovative methods of art teaching or awareness raising activities with art among the participating organizations staff/volunteers
- To create a network of youth workers/artists who are willing to develop new projects and activities after the implementation of the project
- To receive feedback and fine tune the tools that are developed within the toolbox
- To develop new projects and plan the follow-up workshops with the participants
- To develop new activities/workshops/tools
According to the evaluation results, the overall contextual and logistical evaluation result was positive. The participants claimed that the workshops opened their minds and booster their creativity while providing them a space for the discussion concerning the social issues that the project covers as : Social Peace, Poverty, Unemployment and Domestic Violence.
Each country take one of these topics to be touched upon in the workshops which can be seen in the previous section of the methods. The methodology of the evaluation procedure have been anonymous and the participants were requested to answer the questions through an online webform. The participants as well as had an opportunity to express their thoughts about the toolbox and the methods developed due to their participation and implementation of the methods during the training activity.
The evaluation form can be reached out from here : https://forms.office.com/r/3MiDrkVvek
To understand the satisfaction rate of the participants from the training activity, the NPS Score methodology and Likert Scale evaluation methodology have been used.NPS Score is calculated as the graphic indicates below :
Demographics of the Participants
The median age of the participants was 33,26 years old. The oldest participant was 46 and youngest participants was 20 years old.
The participants were consisted of 14 female and 10 male. Each country have involved 6 participants who are artists and youth workers and would be responsible of the implementation of multiplier events in their own countries.
Moreover, the workshops were implemented by the people who were responsible of development of this very intellectual output, thus the staff gained practical experience on the implementation of the methods during the training activity while recieving feedback which was not planned during the development stage of the project though contributed to the practicality of the devleopment of the methodologies. The evaluation was made under three segments : Competences, Open-ended feedback questions and Overall Satisfaction (NPS Score)
Competences
The participants were requested to answer, following statements by reflecting their experience before and after the training activity. They were asked to choose the most suitable option from 5 Likert Scale.
Before Training Activity
After Training Activity
From the evaluation, it clearly shows that the participants gained competences regards to the implementation of activities in intercultural envorienment and connecting art with the activism due to implementation of the activities. During the implementation of the training, the participants have worked on different methods of art such as music, theathre, writing, painting, plastic arts, dance and etc. That gave them an opportunity to learn from each other as well as create a common ground to promote the activism through the usage of art.
As one of the training aim was to qualify the participants to implement activities with the young people in their own countries. Their evaluation concerning to the question as “I believe I can implement workshop activity with the young people in my community by using the tools that I have gained here.” was positive.
Satisfaction Level from the Activities and Logistics
The participants’ satisfaction level from the training activity have been highly positive.
The following comments were indicated by the participants about the implementation of workshops :
“The workshop was amazing. I gained a lot of skills and learned a lot about different types of art.” – Female, 34
“Each team did a fantastic art job. Each activity was different with a different lesson. I liked how we all gave our best and shared our experiences.” – Male, 27
“I am really grateful for all of you, each workshop was ambitious, a good experience and also the time/moments we had together. To get to know you, a bit of your culture and the friendships I made will stay with me :-)” – Male, 42
Participants indicated their plans after the training activity by answering “What is your plan to do with the knowledge/tools and approaches that you have learnt here after the training?” as follows :
“I would like to implement some of these activity in intercultural and youth work with my NGO. It has a good purpose, lesson and it is fun!”- Male,27
“I will try develop it within my own artistic practices. I think what I learned can be a useful tool for ideas on early stages and also to find inspiration for ideas. I thought it was a good experience having your own workshop to teach and I would like to do more of that. I also will want to participate in more workshops and resedencies in the future.”- Male,39
“Implement them in my local community. Use it in my personal life as a tool for mental health (one of the topics approached)” -Female,28
These statements indicate that the participants involved learnt from each other and willing to multiply the results of the training activities. They have as well as considered the workshops implemented as beneficial and inspirational. As Verdesur was the host of the training activity, the participants were requested to provide feedback concerning to the conduct of the facilitators and organizators from the Verdesur side. The participants were overall satisfied about the logistical aspects of the implementation of the activity. Though, the participants were requested a free-time which was not planned due to intensivity of the workshops and activities.
“Yes! Please plan some free time options! We all wanted to visit the castle, and thankfully one team took us there but they shouldn’t have to!! To much work time but nothing planned for free time activities. I feel like I didn’t get to know the organisers at all.” – Male,25
To understand the satisfaction of the participants about the workshops, the question as “Was there anything missing on the workshops implemented? What would be your feedbacks towards to them make it better their work?” was directed. The answers have been as follows.
“I think all of the workshops went really well and I enjoyed each of them in their own way. Maybe the only thing missing regarding the workshops was time (lack of time) for consideration.”- Female,32
“Cannot think of anything that could make them better. Very satisfied with the workshops.”- Female,36
According to the participants’ testimonials about the implementation of the workshops, they were asked to answer “Which session was most valuable to you? Why?” and the answers were varied due to the activities’ nature and the interests of the participants.
“1. Linograph linoprint with Turkey because it was fun, with a goal to fight violence on women and the technique is super creative; 2. Painting with emotions on Saturday, because it had an educational aspect on how to use materials and how to express the emotions with these art materials.” – Male,46
“Thanks for Vukaşin. Now I have a band and we have a song. Thanks for Icelandic team It was a program that really melted the ice.”- Female, 29
“As I say in the answer above, for me each workshop was valuable in their own way. I really liked writing, it was a nice way for me to let go of your thoughts and ideas, and in continiouty letting the grow. It has also been a long time since I worked in printing so the rediscovery of that was really nice for me, something I will continue to work with. I also really liked the workshop where we were making something out of random factors, we drew papers that said words which we had to make something out of. It was spontanious and I really like working in that way, because it makes your mind super focused and gets it going. The music workshop was also really interesting for me, as well as I really liked the doing comics. At last it was also really useful to teach a workshop and I think that will also be a experience that will stay with me.”-Male,25
The above-mentioned statements show that the participants had an experience about different aspects of the art and creativity while discussing about the social issues like in the workshop of Turkish team as fight violence. Thus, the training activity gave us an opportunity to try out methods that we have developed within this toolbox and share this experience with the others. The overall evaluation of the activities have been positive as well as the training activity gave us an opportunity to plan and implement the multiplier events in each country. The results of the multiplier events can be found in the webpage of the toolbox.
