The international training course about social support took place in Liepaja region, Latvia between 22nd and 31st of March. It was organized by the Children and youth union “Liepajas Jaunie Vanagi”, and funded by the Erasmus + program. Photos from training are available on the Facebook page of the association.

The main objective of the training course was to develop skills and gain knowledge in order to help young people to succeed in the labor market, to exchange good practices among the participants and also, later to pass on all the information to more and more people. The 30 participants from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey, were hosted in the Lenkas guest house near the Baltic Sea. The chosen location helped us, participants to bond with each other very quickly, due to the fact that we were isolated from society. The first day we focused on getting to know each other, and to find out detailed information about the topics and the flow of the training course. Over the following days we talked about various subjects, related to the training course’s theme, we simulated situations, we shared our experiences and backgrounds with each other, and finally we tried to find solutions to the arisen problems. In the middle of the training course we spent one day in Liepaja where we visited the Business Incubator and the University of Liepaja. We gathered some information about how to become an entrepreneur, and about how to present ourselves in a job interview. In the remaining days we continued working on the topics of discrimination, inclusion, exclusion, social risk groups, youth workers, communication styles, time management etc. On the last day we sum up all activities what we have done during the training course, we shared with each other our favorite topics and the activities where we learned the most. Finally we made the first steps in order to create common projects in the future. I had a lot of fun during this training course, ….met some really special (and interesting) people, ….enlarged my comfort zone, ….learned some incredible methods, ….improved my knowledge, ….created new connections for future projects and ….am grateful that I could participate in the training course Youth voice – social support Author: Ramneantu Krisztina