General Seminar presentation
The AFS network usually sees the young participants of exchanges as the key learners and primary target group. But the design of our mobility schemes, where the entire stay abroad happens with a local host family, gives the AFS programmes a huge potential of addressing the two generations at the same time and seeing them together as both learners and facilitators of intercultural learning. This potential so far has not been used sufficiently. When working with programmes, we have been treating the host families rather as “the contributors/hosts”, and only the young exchange participants as “learners”. Every year we struggle to find local host families for mobility participants, trying to convince them to “share their culture and home” with a young foreigner. We lack a structured approach for proper inclusion of these families in the intercultural learning: offering them also educational gains and learning with and from the young people. Much more can be achieved when learning between generations is mutual and when both younger and older people see themselves and act as protagonists, initiators, leaders, facilitators or just conscious players in the intercultural interactions. It can also be a stronger way to channel the AFS Mission, reaching further target groups.
Hence, the overall idea of this seminar is to open up the AFS exchanges for more involvement and learning across generations, leading to a higher motivation, better overall participation, inclusion and solidarity between younger and older people. The specific objectives for the youth workers participating to the seminar are to:
- discuss different needs, as well as educational opportunities, of different age groups in long-term exchanges,
- explore the role of exchange participants and volunteers as facilitators of non-formal and informal learning in host families,
- share local realities, different cultural approaches and existing practices of intergenerational learning in the different countries represented,
- work on improved non-formal educational methods for AFS to facilitate mutual intercultural learning across generations,
- share and discuss the seminar outcomes with a group of local Swedish volunteers (thanks to the joint session with the AFS national assembly),
- formulate follow-up action plans for the participating youth workers and their organisations, to increase intergenerational impact of long-term exchanges.
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