This project is a part of wider and long-term international cooperation, coordinated by YMCA Europe. This time we focused on management of human resources. The host of the conference was YMCA France, and the project was funded by a grant obtained from the French National Agency of Erasmus+. The partner organisations represent 16 European countries that sent 40 participants. Traditionally, the team of trainers had an expert provided by YMCA USA.
The programme of training was implemented in the form of workshops that belonged to 5 key modules:
Module 1: "Building a Good Team is Essential"
Module 2: "Training System for Camp Staff and Volunteers"
Module 3: "To Be Employer, To Be Employee"
Module 4: "Human Resources – Challenges”
Module 5: “Camps in Europe- Programme Coalition"
The programme included also activities that presented Erasmus+ Programme and were associated with its tools e.g. Youthpass.
The venue was Le Rocheton YMCA Centre – a place, which has all the necessary facilities for running training events. This is also a place where migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have their temporary home – the YMCA of France is well known as an organization that runs such projects. This was very important for the conference programme as it included sessions, where the matter of diversity, tolerance, prevention from xenophobia and violence at camps was a crucial topic.
The project was the continuation and development of the YMCA Europe Camp programme, however, it has brought some new elements: for the first time we had participants and trainers from Southern and Eastern Europe and there were some representatives of non-YMCA organisations that run camps. All that makes the project and its outcome widely available and open to European communities.
Traditionally the YMCA of the USA sent a trainer – Bernard Rocca (second time in this role) provided several sessions that helped to learn and adopt American methodology of running summer camps and training human resources – that was extremely valuable. The entire conference was a good example of the interaction of overseas and European experts.
Among the participants and facilitators was Claude Redoute, President of YMCA Le Rocheton. Thanks to him a lot of organisational issues went smoothly and the conference became much more attractive for the participants.
Now, it’s time for follow-up activities and dissemination of the outcome. This process will be completed in October 2019. This project was co-funded by the French National Agency of Erasmus+ 
Full photo album in HD below. Photo credits: Joao Moura – YMCA Setubal
