This year’s EYC Youth Exchange was hosted between the 17 and 26th of July 2023 in Veszprém, Hungary. The event was organized and implemented by GYIÖT on behalf of the Municipality of Veszprém and VEB2023. Youngsters from 6 countries and 7 cities gathered in the region of Bakony-Balaton to develop their intercultural competences through non-formal learning methods and to make friendships from all across the continent. A very crucial element of the programme was a street performance initiated, prepared and implemented by the youngsters that was presented to the local community in the last days of the event. To help them in the preparation of this creative process, we used project based learning combined with art based teaching methods. In numbers, this eight-day long youth exchange meant 70 participants which shows it was a significant event that had to be implemented by 10 organizers who helped with the successful learning process of the participants.
It is a great challenge to communicate effectively with such a large number of participants, thus LineUpr meant the most important platform of communication for us during these eight days. It’s a website and an application where you can inform participants during certain events about daily schedules, locations and any other important details with only a smart device. It serves as a virtual brochure and contributes to the smooth flow of information. Moreover, one of the emphasized goals of Erasmus+ and events co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme is sustainability. With this application, there is no need to share the schedule and other additional information in printed form.
We tried to make the most out of the possibilities provided by the application to make the schedule as organised and transparent for the participants as possible. If the event takes place at various locations and cities, it may be worth uploading each location separately in the list and assigning a brief description to them where you explain what type of activity they’ll face there and what type of facilities they can have access to there. In our case, the meals were provided outside the accommodation and the activity room provided for the daytime workshops were all in separate locations around the town, therefore it was a huge help that the map to each place was easily accessible with just one click from the application. With this, the youngsters could quickly plan a route to our gathering points from wherever they may have been in the town. It’s very positive about the application that you can assign a link to each location. If we are planning to visit different towns, places and/or recreational areas, you can add a description and their website just with one click. For those who are eager to learn more about a specific place or programme in the schedule, they can access it in one second through the link. For us, the Street Music Festival of Veszprém took place right in the middle of our youth exchange which the participants were extremely interested in. It was not necessary to print out the schedule of the four-day programme, they could easily find it all through the link shared in LineUpr. Moreover, it’s possible to filter and sort search results based on location regarding the schedule which makes it easier for the participants to see what type of activities are waiting for them in specified locations.
As for the description of certain programmes, if needed, additional text can be added on top of the exact time interval and location. This can come in handy if certain activities require information in advance or some type or reminder (e.g. bringing their own equipment for swimming). With this, we can give the participants an opportunity to visit the workshops well prepared. At the beginning of each day, we can take time to scroll through the uploaded daily schedule together and if anyone has questions regarding certain elements of the programme, they can instantly ask questions from the facilitators, oragnisers. As an additional text, it’s possible to upload the daily menu to each meal as a list instead of printing out all the meals of eight days squeezed into one spreadsheet which makes it way more accessible and readable than the printed option.
On the website, there is an opportunity to divide different programmes into different categories which are shown as different colours. In the schedule you can sort search results by location and categories too which makes it super easy for the participants to get information about programmes that are relevant or interesting for them: whether that is an outdoor activity, a workshop, a free time activity or a meal. It’s worth taking enough time to create seperate categories and to divide all your programmes into those.
You can also add the participants as well as the sponsors of your event one by one into LineUpr. For the latter, it may be worth adding the description and links of the partners to the platform to make it easier for the participants to get familiar with the work of the involved insitutions and organisations. This is mainly important if certain sponsors are planning to have a presentation throughout the event. With the additional resources and links, it will be easier for the participants to get more information about specific organisations on the internet. As for the list of participants, we can divide them into categories as well. This may help in making the process of introduction and getting to know each other a bit easier. Especially during the first few days, it may be useful to see which people are the group leaders of the national teams, which organisers are responsible for specific tasks, who can help with certain issues throughout the event. The next tip doesn’t have to be added as a compulsory element into the schedule of youth exchanges as it may be uncomfortable for some people and not everyone may want to participate. However it may be a good idea to give an opportunity to the participants to customize their own pages in LineUpr: to add their own photos, to write a short bio, to add their own preferred social media accounts where they can be reached. With the updated pages, the participants can get a glimpse of who they’ll be spending the next few days with and can also notice similarities among each other whether that’s based on interests or basic information such as age. This may all led to friendships later on. As for our youth exchange, the youngsters particularly enjoyed that they were given the chance to personalize their pages and completed this optional task with such creativity. Throughout the event, they often referred to each others’ bios, especially during the preparation of their street performance when it was important to get familiar with one another’s interests and hidden talents and to see how each individual can contribute to the success of their big plan. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to give permisson to the participants to actually customize their own pages within the application, therefore it might be a good solution to share a Google Form link in LineUpr and to update their pages based on the collected answers.
A very good addition to LineUpr is the possibility of sending pop up messages as a form of notification. This function can be a creative addition to communicating with the participants and it can be used in a huge variety of ways. We can use brief messages at the beginning or the end of the days as an energy booster. They can be used as a reminder regarding specific programmes that requre planning in advance (e.g. need of personal tools or a certain type of clothing). On top of that, the learning process of the youngsters can be helped with specific questions asked in a pop up message. For instance, if we know for a fact that our participants are taking part in a free time activity together, we may ask them questions which are connected to both their activity and the main topic of the youth exchange. As mentioned before, the participants of the EYC youth exchange were extremely interested in the town’s Street Music Festival which they visited for multiple nights. As planning a street performance for the residents played a huge role in their event, we asked them to observe the concerts and to get inspired by them. We helped their learning process with questions regarding their night which they could answer together in the presence of their group leaders later on.
Sadly, in the free version of the application it is not possible to start a conversation with the participants apart from the pop up messages, there is absolutely no way for two-way communication. It is advertised to synchronize LineUpr with a different messaging app that is commonly used by everyone involved and to make a groupchat. The organisers and group leaders can easily exchange information and can be reached in SOS situations there.
The conclusion is: LineUpr can help smooth communication between organisers and participants during youth events. However, it’s important not to forget that it has its own limitations. It’s a clever idea to make the most out of the application to make it as accessible and easily understandable as possible – good solution if we consistently use categories for each and every location, programme and participant and ensure that each programme is listed in the right place with relevant information.
Written by: Luca Turda
