Cherry on the cake – Learning more about best practices in youth work

In 2022, Sorin Sirkus was granted an Erasmus+ accreditation—recognition of high-quality, committed and impactful youth work. Through the funding enabled by the accreditation, we implement international mobilities such as youth exchanges and staff training exchanges between circus schools. In this blog post, Kira and Maria share their thoughts on international training in youth work that they attended earlier this year. They both work as circus instructors at Sorin Sirkus.

In March, we had the opportunity to participate in an international training called Cherry on the Cake youth exchanges under accreditation training in Youth Centre Marttinen in Virrat. Youth Centre Marttinen is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. During the training we met many youth workers from all over Europe that gave us a stronger perspective on the realities of youth work. We were honored to be the only participants representing the youth circus sector.

During the training, we experienced methods with creative-, nature -and adventure-based approaches. The beautiful surroundings of Marttinen made it possible to engage with nature in meaningful ways. Marttinen staff is specialized in adventure pedagogies that we also got a taste of by participating in a rope adventure course as well as rescue suit floating in icy waters. Creative methods formed a continuous path throughout the entire training led by trainers Antti and Urska.

Because the other participants had hands on experience in the field of youth work, they gave us new ideas for the engagement and participation of youth. We heard interesting examples on the ways in which youth are included in decision making -and evaluation processes throughout projects focusing on youth work. For example, youth exchanges are considered as youth led initiatives focusing on the different needs and topics created by the participants.

From now on, we hope to keep on developing the youth work and youth exchanges in Sorin Sirkus. We were able to create potential partnerships within the European youth work sector and are continuing discussions of different possibilities with them. The training gave us a lot of new ideas and inspiration as well as a stronger drive to keep on developing and reworking our youth-led approaches.

Thank you so much for reading!
Kira and Maria