The training took place on September 15. 2020. in the premises of the Austrian Roma NGO Romano Centro. The participants were 15 Roma girls, who have been previously involved with the work of Romano Centro. The aim was to get to know the youngsters and to empower them to express their needs and wishes in order to be able to develop further activities fitting their expectations.
At the beginning of the training the trainers introduced themselves, the participants (sitting in a big circle) had to use the toilet-paper-method as an icebreaker to introduce some facts about themselves. In order to get to know each other better, after the first round of introduction the participants were asked to pick a card from the floor, choosing what would represent them mostly, or a hobby they have and then to discuss in groups of 4 why they chose the card.
After discussing in small groups about their interests and hobbies the participants were invited to brainstorm about their favorite places in the city and why they prefer those places. This method was useful in order to map where the most frequented places of those youngsters were in Vienna.
After a short musical break the participants came back to the circle and the facilitators introduced a quick energizer. The second part of the Workshop started with a mapping of the involvement with social media and the participants had to choose a side: snapping or texting; texting or calling; Facebook or Instagram; Instagram or snapchat; Insta story or snap;…. of course the participants did not always decided for one and chose to stand on the line when they agreed with both or none.
The line in the middle of the room was again used in the following empowerment activity: Music Quiz. The facilitators played one song at a time and the youngsters had to decide if it was Roma music or not. (without providing a definition of Roma music in advance). What the participants did not know was that all songs that were played were performed by Roma artists, even though the genres very much differed. A deep discussion then followed about the definition of cultural heritage and identity. In the end the sandwich method was applied to get feedback on the workshop.
The training was organized by RGDTS in co-operation with Romano Centro as part of the Roma Youth Voices project, funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the DG Justice, European Commission.
