Project:  Fall and Rise!

Description: Nowadays, in a world of speed, in which the results of learning or work are expected to be extremely rapidly visible, one usually forgets about the importance of a clear understanding of the failure concept and of the influence the failure can have upon those who learn or are employed as well as upon evolution of the organizations themselves (schools, companies, etc.).
A similar perception of mistakes/ failure is manifested in the formal educational area. All the actors (students, teachers, parents) consider mistakes as very serious things which endanger child’s development.
These things happen because of a very weak development of the culture of failure. In many cases, the development of the human personality (students in the formal educational system or employees in the working field) is stopped by the fear of failure.
In the process of formal learning, the evaluation is done through hunting the mistakes. On the working field the employees feel threatened every time they make a mistake. The fact that mistakes are necessary elements in the process of personal development is never taken into consideration. The consequences are: the loss of motivation and self-esteem, more serious failures which can lead to school dropout, the feeling of uselessness.

FAR project aims to develop the competences and key abilities of 30 youth workers from 13 organizations from 12 European countries (BG, HR, GR, IT, LV, LT, MK, PL, PT, RO, SK, ES), through a training course run with the means of non-formal education in the culture of failure field at Voronet, Suceava county, Romania, for 8 days, in order to support the youth who cannot cope with failure and in consequence for the increase of the quality of their learning and work.

The operational objectives will be: developing a deeper knowledge of failure concept (typology, causes, effects); increasing the abilities to work with youths by designing and planning „coping” activities in order to help the youths to deal with failure; developing a proactive attitude and behavior towards failure by planning and putting into practice an educational program for youths (and optional for adults).

The methods were chosen according to the project objectives, the expected results of learning and heterogenic age of the participants: know each other trust exercises, reflection exercises, PP presentations, open space, round table, workshops on groups, learning cafe, forum theater, roles play, simulations, short movie watching, movie making workshop, study visit and others.

The results of the project will be a guide-brochure “Coping with failure”, a project blog and the movie of the course.

Both on short and long term we anticipate the following results: the youth workers will have the necessary competences to guide the youths in the field of failure; the youths will have a better chance to gain a new attitude towards failure (will give up the culture of fear and justification); the organizations will enlarge their expertise area and their training offer on this topic and will develop a proactive attitude and behavior towards failure.

FAR anticipates a significant impact. At the local level the participant organizations will positively influence the youth work by putting into practice the support program planned during the course. About 250 youths will benefit of conciliation through various activities run during the FAR course. On long term, this number will increase. The formal and non-formal educational systems, as well as other interested actors, will be sensitized and will organize common activities and programmes. The quality and efficiency of youth work will be improved because of the promotion of the ideas of the equality, social cohesion and European citizenship.

FAR originality consists in the fact that it brings into light the modern and less approached problem of youth’s occupational counseling on the basis of the culture of failure – issue presented from two different perspectives: learning in school and behavior on the job market. Exploring concepts like coping with failure techniques, automatic thoughts, positive reframing, mental contrast, emotional intelligence, leadership and many others - all these offers the project originality and concrete usefulness.

All these will have a significant benefic effect on long term. They will contribute to the youngsters’ state of well-being. At the same time FAR will offer the youth workers the satisfaction of reaching a superior degree of professionalism..