An Interview with Noel: NEETs For NEETs Workshops in Borås, Sweden
22/05/2023
From April 25-27, the NEETs For NEETs project carried out the second Learning, Teaching and Training Activity in Borås, Sweden. The two-day training event, hosted by Borås Stad, was part of the project that seeks to foster co-creation and empower young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs). NEETs For NEETs is led by EARLALL member Region Västra Götaland, in consortium with Volkshochschulverband Baden-Württemberg, Save the Children Sweden, Oslo Adult Education Rosenhof, NAV Bjerke (Norway), Borås Stad, the City of Stuttgart, EARLALL and the Support Group Network.
Over the three days, youth invited by the NEETs For NEETs partner organisations organised different workshops to ‘train the trainers’ on the various training tools that they had learnt about throughout the project.
What did the participants think?
EARLALL interviewed Noel Berglund, 17 and from Sweden who aspires to be a policeman in the future about his experience in the training and in the NEETs for NEETs project:
Tell us what you did during the workshops in Sweden….
“During the LTTA, we took part in loads of activities and games that mostly involved the theme oppression/oppressed. That was an excellent opportunity for us to build trust and relationships with both the other people representing the youth as well as all the staff. But performing these games we didn’t have just fun and get to know each other, but we also had this feeling of why we were doing them. Most of them presented the theme of oppression in a very straightforward way, which made it really easy for us to all get in the same mindset on what we are there to learn and do. One very structured way to show great examples of oppression in our society was when we were all put in different groups and got the task to write a full script and perform a planned-out
scene on the theatre stage. We had to include some sort of oppression happening. We later had to pick out a “joker” from the crowd to help us solve the issue and help the victim/victims. All these activities and stuff we did was semi useful for what we were learning about but i have to say from personal experience that i got the most out of just listening to other human beings talk about their experiences about oppression in their life, how they got oppressed from anxiety and depression as an example as well as how they were solving/dealing with them.
Tell us about what you learnt….
“From these wonderful days, the most important things I took with me was how oppression looks from other perspectives and how it affects other members in society. I got the chance to listen to other people share their feelings of oppression and how they dealt with them, or how some people just learned how to live with them. I’m so grateful for all the interactions we had about the theme, but also all the thoughts and feelings I got to take part in. I found that how things affect our feelings and how we feel is what truly makes us human.
Tell us how you took responsibility over the few days…
“By allowing us to express ourselves and use our voices to enlighten others about what we had on our minds and what we felt, then I feel we took a lot of ownership over what we did. We were all our own leaders with a unique voice and thoughts that all contributed to really interesting conversations with mind opening subjects. I feel like everyone did their part of making the activities interesting enough for us to learn something from them or just bond with other people. Yes, we took ownership and we made a change. A change in other people’s way of thinking.
Find out more about NEETs for NEETs by following the Instagram page and #N4NEETs.
