UNOY Peacebuilders was asked to share its knowledge on facilitation of international meetings and online meetings with member organisations in the south as a tool for capacity building. The organisation PSO approached UNOY as a resource organisation as part of their 4-day training on civil society and capacity building for Dutch Development Aid organisations in June 2010.

UNOY Peacebuilders shared some examples of how it works with a combination of skype-calls and Skype chat, e-groups and direct phone calls to facilitate discussions in the UNOY network among the International Steering Groups members and between youth organisation working in thematic groups.

While the International Secretariat often initiates a discussion piece on training programmes or draft policy proposals on – for example – gender mainstreaming. It only does so after hearing from a selection of members about the importance of the initiative. Often the secretariat hears the needs from different members and decides the to bring the voices together in a group email.

Facilitation of a dialogue process to develop a programme or a policy using virtual tools takes time. It also requires the secretariat or a designated member to take a guiding role, summarizing and concluding email and skype conversations and ensuring that everybody stays informed even if they cannot attend a meeting on skype (due to internet limitations).

The method of consultation of UNOY by PSO was also innovative. The participants were given the option to call UNOY and other organisations during their training at a set hour as a help line. Provided information was used by the participants to further develop their understanding of the use of tools like facilitation, coaching, research and exchange for capacity building aims.

UNOY Peacebuilders took part in a week-long a training course on Democratic Management and Leadership of Youth Organisations.

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UNOY Peacebuilders is organising the Building Peace Skills Training in May 2010. Click here to read more and register for the training.

From 14-22 February 2010, UNOY Peacebuilders' Projects Coordinator participated in a 7 day Training for Facilitators involved in non-formal education with young people in the field of social inclusion. The training course was organized by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (Fr).

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From 24 February to 4 March 2010, UNOY Peacebuilders will partner with 18 organizations to design a "Peace Bag" toolkit meant to faciliatate inter-cultural dialogue in order to contribute to a culture of peace. This if the first phase of a three part project and will take place in Barcelona, Vilanova a la Geltru. This project is supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation. Click here to visit the website, or read more for the complete press release.

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UNOY Peacebuilders' Projects Coordinator went to Luzernsommern in Germany from 23 to 30 November for an international Training Course on how to use Movement (dance and physical theatre) as a tool to work on the Prevention of Youth Violence and to address the consequences of violence among youth. A representative of U Move for Peace, a Belgium member organisation of UNOY, also took part. The other training participants were youth workers, psychologists, dance therapists and educators from a variety of 15 European countries.

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In Spring 2010, UNOY would like to run a week long workshop about Peacebuilding, the Role of Youth, Campaigning and Project Planning which aims to empower and train young people for non-violent social skills and leadership.

We are looking for youth organisations based in the European Union who would like to be partners in this project. We have done two very successful workshops like this in the past. Partnership would involve sending 1-2 participants to the training, giving input on the programme and recommending trainers. Please contact Fiona Burgess (Europe@unoy.org) by 27 October if your organisation is interested.

The call for participants to UNOY Peacebuilders' Study Session on Gender Equality in Youth Peacebuilding Projects is now open. The study session will take place from 29 November to 6 December 2009 in Budapest. The deadline for application is 15 September 2009.

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UNOY Peacebuilders is organising the 5 day Building Peace in Practice Training (PDF) in June and July this year.

If you would like to apply, please send the completed application form to training@unoy.org or mail it to:
UNOY Peacebuilders
Laan van Meerdervoort 70
2517 AN The Hague
The Netherlands

The application deadline is 23 May 2009.

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