Personal Targets

Context

Personal Targets was the first youth exchange organised by our Informal Group. The mobility took place from 25 March to 5th of April 2024 in Saldenburg and it involved 42 youngsters from Hungary, Romania, Spain, Portugal and Germany.

The goal of "Personal Targets" was to provide young people with the opportunity to learn and improve their interpersonal competencies, while practicing archery and engaging in personal development activities and cultural exchange. Archery is not only a physical activity, but also a mental one that requires focus, discipline, and perseverance. These are essential life skills that benefit the participants in their personal and professional lives.

The activities were planned by the project teambased on the needs of the youth involved in this stage and based on their archery experience as well, designing it to be engaging and helpful for the participating youngsters to improve a set of needed skills. The non-formal methods used during the mobility were: brainstorming, working in teams, world cafes, energizers, ice-breaking activities, open discussions etc.

Results

Among the intangible results we count: the knowledge and ability to practice archery, the improvement of concentration, patience and self-control developed by practicing archery, the 8 key competences developed by the participants during the mobility, acquired as a result of the activities organized for this purpose,

We cannot go further without mentioning the friendships consolidated through this project, the networking between the organizations and the participants, and development of the skills of partner organizations to create such opportunities for young people in their communities

Those involved developed their cultural knowledge, the ability to communicate in a foreigh language and the project team and group leaders to learned ho to find quick solutions to the problems that arise along the way, developing their adaptability in different scenarios.

Activities

First 2 days of the mobility were focused on getting to know each other and the programme itself (through learning about Erasmus+, YouthPass certificate and its 8 key competences),creating the social contract, building the committees and having an evaluation at the beginning of the project to assess everyone’s expectations and fears. Also, everyone created their digital journals in order to have the reflection sessions at the end of each day.

Starting with the third day of the project the participants were introduced to archery basics sessions, working with an archery expert facilitator and started practicing archery in teams, individually or as tournaments, exercising patience and concentration while aiming for different targets on an easier or more challenging level and also facing moving targets as a final activity of the archery sessions. During this time, the young adults also got the opportunity to continue being involved in group connection exercises such as trust fall and treasure hunt on an archery theme around the accommodation, while also reflecting upon themselves too and setting their own individual goals for the future.

Last day of activities was dedicated to wrapping up the mobility by planning the dissemination events, creating the web platform, evaluating the days spent together and leaving final messages to each other, being grateful for the last moments together as a whole group.

Learning outcomes and impact

This project was focused on the development of interpersonal competences, while practicing archery and engaging in personal development activities and cultural exchange. Also, the proposed activities were focused on developing communication, teamwork, focus, discipline and goal-setting competences through hands-on practice of archery for all participants.

Competences acquired through archery were focus, patience, self-control and discipline.Each participant was involved in a concentration and focus exercise to mimic archery and aiming to the right target, in order to prepare for it. After the archery practice started, day by day more challenges were added to the basic archery practice in order for everyone to become familiar with different archery situations and to learn how to concentrate and focus in certain cases. Besides the archery practice, each person was invited to reflect upon themselves, think about their wishes and create a goal-list for their future, through a goal-setting session.

What is left after the project

In order to have a tangible memory of the activities of this project and everything that happened during the 10 days spent together, we created a video where the most memorable moments were included, which the participants could watch on the last day of activities, as a final surprise. This video is publicly available on YouTube and can be watched by anyone.

Testimonials

Personal Targets was an amazing project with amazing people. I feel like i made so many deep connections and good friends for which I’m beyond grateful.

The topic, archery, was really useful one for so many reasons, it made me feel more connected to my body, helped me practice focus and patience, which are also very useful when setting goals or we can say, personal targets, and it also gave me a new hobby to pursue. :)

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