On the 27th of November 2018, IAAS Ghent invited students (local, international and IAAS) to eat croque monsieurs together and afterwards learn about youth empowerment.
What does youth empowerment mean to you? With that question we opened our Youth Empowerment workshop made by Wageningen University WUR and Bianca Curcio (IAAS Switzerland). Ellen van Mello delivered the workshop as she is an experienced soft-skill trainer in IAAS. We first brainstormed on the question, wrote down our ideas and stuck them on the wall. Afterwards we discussed in 2 groups what were some internal and external factors which influence youth empowerment. Internal factors can be empathy & understanding, confidence, informing yourself whilst external factors are social media, policies & politics, access (to a safe environment, technology, information),.... We took out the most
important ones and grouped them together under common names. Lastly we talked about what the most influencing factors were to us. For me that was: Getting out of my comfort zone (start presenting more, travelling alone, living abroad,...), educating myself on matters which are important to me and my confidence which sometimes is lacking.
We surely learned a lot on this workshop and hopefully our answers help the research at WUR!
