February 24-27, 2012
Čakovec (Croatia)
The support for talented youth is becoming an increasingly discussed issue on the European level, as it is expected to be pivotal for the future competitiveness of European economy. However, creating a support system, especially for the young age groups, is a highly complex task that requires collaborative participation from various social actors. This is difficult to accomplish, especially in countries like Croatia that undergo deep social and economic reforms and lack a systemic policy on this issue. The project aims at bringing together active participants in the field of identification and support of motivated and gifted youth: education professionals, science promoters, researchers in education, and policy makers. They will present their work by communicating their views on what they consider as a talented youth and promoting successful measures and activities they have undertaken. This will foster collaborations between participants, which is a necessary step toward promoting joint projects, ideas and initiatives. The project will help create plans for cooperative projects and future joint actions to ensure a long term impact of the project.
Partnership building activity supported by Youth in Action Programme
Additional support provided by Međimurje County and Technology Innovation Centre Međimurje.
Organized by:
DETAILED INFORMATION
— Purpose and aim —
— Program —
— Registration —
— Contact —
— Venue —
— Travel and travel costs —
— Accommodation —
The project purpose:
The common need of organizations working with motivated and gifted youth is to exchange good practices and find ways how to jointly approach fundraising. In order to achieve this level of cooperation and trust, they have to meet, discuss and exchange personnel. And not only within their country, but internationally. They also have to provide such opportunities to their pupils and help them increase their worldview, self-confidence, and break through social and economic barriers. Science and technology “speak” a universal language, where the gender, race or socioeconomic status of youth is irrelevant. What matters is their skills and knowledge, and our project will help in creating more opportunities for their training and learning.
The project aim:
Through our project we will enable various organizations working with motivated or gifted youth from different countries to meet at one place and present their work to each other with the purpose of finding project partners. Working with talented youth is a highly innovative process, constantly adapting to the fast cultural evolution of younger generations (driven by the very same technology they generally do not find exciting to explore!). There are many various approaches that are very instructive and useful and participants of the conference will have a chance to adopt new practices and become more effective. For instance, some groups and organizations are very innovative in how to maximise their impact on talented youth with minimum resources. Others have managed to reach a large number of individuals and recruit older youth to help younger youth. And some are working on modernizing educational polices for local or national governments. Our project involves organizations from countries that span a large gap in economic development and considerable differences in educational systems. This project will, through a process of benchmarking, enable them to increase the quality of their work and help them to make plans for joint projects, ideas and initiatives, as well as applications for future funding. A major long-term goal is promotion of evidence based policy for the talented and motivated youth.
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DAY 1 |
15:00 – 16:00 | Off-event: Presentation of Science Center Petnica (at TIC) |
| 17:00 – 19:00 | Registration (at Hotel Park) | |
| 19:00 – 20:00 | Welcome notes, presentation of the programme, aims and objective | |
| 20:00 – | Dinner | |
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DAY 2 |
9:00 – 9:30 | Opening ceremony & Registration (at TIC) |
| 9:30 – 11:00 | Session 1: Supporting motivation in gifted students from all social and cultural backgrounds – methods and outcomes | |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break | |
| 11:30 – 13:00 | Session 1: discussion | |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch | |
| 14:30 – 16:00 | Session 2: New practices to empower teachers to offer a sustainable support to motivated and gifted youth | |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee break | |
| 16:30 – 18:00 | Session 2: discussion | |
| 18:00 – 19:00 | Informal break | |
| 19:00 – | Dinner and free evening | |
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DAY 3 |
9:30 – 11:00 | Session 3: Evolving our practices by learning from current research on motivated and gifted youth |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee break | |
| 11:30 – 13:00 | Session 3: discussion | |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | Lunch | |
| 14:30 – 16:00 | Session 4: Lobbying for changes in the education policies on motivated and gifted youth | |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee break | |
| 16:30 – 18:00 | Session 4: discussion | |
| 18:00 – 19:00 | Informal break | |
| 19:00 – | Dinner and departure of some participants | |
| DAY 4 Feb.27 |
10:00 – 12:30 | Session 5: drafting of the Action Plan (only for representatives of projects and organizations interested in further collaboration on project activities and joint fundraising) |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch | |
| 13:30 – 15:30 | Session 5: cont. |
Due to the limits set by Youth in Action Programme, we are left with a limited number of participants allowed from institutions not involved in this project. If you have an active project within the topic of this partnership building activity, please contact us at the address given below and describe your project and what kind of project partners you seek.
For any further information feel free to contact us:
Ivan Novosel: ivan.novosel AT iszd DOT hr
Bojan Markičević: bojan.markicevic AT iszd DOT hr
The event will take place at the Technology Innovation Centre Međimurje (TIC).
Address: Bana Josipa Jelačića 22, Čakovec
Location of TIC on GoogleMaps: HERE
The organizers will reimburse 70% of your travel costs from your home city to Čakovec.
Reimbursement of travel costs will be done upon presentation of the original tickets with boarding passes and receipt/invoices. PLEASE, make the copies of your tickets and receipt/invoices before your arrival, so that we can speed up on-site reimbursement process. Thank you!
NOTE!!!: According to the rules of Youth in Action Programme funding, only the cheapest travel is allowed for reimbursement (bus, train, economy class flights). Travel by car is NOT eligible for reimbursement!
Location of Čakovec and Technology Innovation Centre Međimurje (TIC) is shown HERE on GoogleMaps. HERE you can find a map of Čakovec. Map with marked train station, bus station, Hotel Park and TIC is shown on the image below:
Accommodation is covered by the organizers.
Participants will stay at Hotel Park (www.hotel-park.info).
Address: Zrinsko-Frankopanska bb, Čakovec.
Instructions how to find the hotel are given above under “Travel“.