Training Course: Peacebuilding Strategies for Civic Participation and Community Initiatives

What happens when youth workers from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia spend seven intensive days together in Vienna — learning to transform conflict, build civic dialogue, and take peace education back to their communities? This is that story.

Why This Project? Why Now?

Across the Euro-Mediterranean region, young people are increasingly disconnected from civic institutions, distrustful of political processes, and in many cases directly affected by unresolved social and community conflicts. Youth workers — the frontline professionals who work with young people every day — are often the first to see these dynamics, but do not always have the specialised methodological tools to address them.

This project was designed to change that. Coordinated by AOD Austria and supported by partner organisations from 8 countries, it brought together a diverse cohort of youth workers for a 7-day professional development training course in Vienna built around three core pillars: conflict transformation methodology, the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach (RMA), and peace education practice.

The training was funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under Key Action 1 — Learning Mobility of Individuals — with AOD Austria as coordinating organisation.

The Participants: A Truly Euro-Mediterranean Group

The 28 youth workers who gathered in Vienna came from vastly different professional, cultural, and personal backgrounds. They ranged in age from 20 to 38. Twenty-one were women and 10 were men — a composition reflecting the reality of who is doing community youth work in both EU and South Mediterranean contexts. For the majority, this was their first international Erasmus+ learning experience.

What united them was shared professional purpose: all were actively engaged in youth work or civil society, all were committed to using their learning to address real civic challenges in their communities, and all arrived with a genuine curiosity about how to engage constructively with conflict rather than manage or avoid it.

A particularly remarkable asset was the background of the four South Mediterranean delegations. Many participants from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia had years of experience with Model United Nations events and structured debating clubs — giving them exceptional competences in multilateral dialogue, formal negotiation, and collaborative decision-making that enriched the learning experience for all participants in ways that no intra-European consortium could have replicated.

The Programme: Seven Days of Deep Professional Learning

The training was carefully structured across seven activity days, following a progressive learning logic that moved from foundation-building to immersive application to synthesis and local action planning.

Arrival Day  Welcome & First Connections

Participants arrived at HI Hostel Vienna Brigittenau and were introduced to each other through the Commonality icebreaker. A welcome dinner launched the week.

Day 1  Foundation, Code of Conduct & Country Realities

Group consensus, a collaboratively co-created Code of Conduct, Balaton's Analysis of expectations and motivations, introduction to Youthpass, and national presentations on conflict and civic participation realities from all 8 countries.

Day 2  Conflict Dynamics

Exploring conflict dynamics through case study analysis, emotional intelligence and conflict through role-play, and conflict analysis tools through structured group work.

Day 3  Conflict Transformation Models & Simulation

Deep dive into Galtung's conflict transformation triangle and the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, applied through scenario analysis and a live simulation exercise.

Day 4  UN Vienna Study Visit

Full-day visit to the Vienna International Centre, engaging with UN practitioners in multilateral peacebuilding. Followed by the Europa Experience Multimedia Centre and an introduction to the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach.

Day 5  Reciprocal Maieutic Approach — Immersive Day

Full day exploring and applying RMA through dialogue circles, case studies, role-play, and group initiative planning.

Day 6  Peace Education Tools & Co-Creation

Introduction to peace education principles, a World Café on peacebuilding tools, and collaborative creation of the shared Padlet resource library.

Day 7  Youthpass, Harvest & Closure

Youthpass completion, collective harvesting of outcomes, finalisation of local follow-up plans, comprehensive evaluation, and closing ceremony.

The Heart of the Methodology: RMA and Conflict Transformation

At the centre of the project's learning design was the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach (RMA) — a participatory dialogue methodology developed by Sicilian educator and activist Danilo Dolci in Italy. RMA is rooted in the idea that communities carry within them the knowledge needed to resolve their own conflicts — and that the role of the facilitator is not to provide answers but to create the conditions for that knowledge to emerge through honest, structured collective dialogue.

“We don’t solve conflicts by knowing the answer. We solve them by creating the space in which communities can find their own.”

Core principle of the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach — Danilo Dolci

Complementing RMA was a full introduction to Johan Galtung's conflict transformation triangle — distinguishing between the attitudes, behaviours, and contradictions that sustain conflict — and the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, which helped participants understand their own conflict-handling preferences and how to adapt them across different situations.

The multilateral simulation exercise on Day 3 brought all of these frameworks together in a high-energy, immersive format. Participants played roles in a complex, multi-stakeholder conflict scenario and were required to negotiate, compromise, and reach collective decisions under genuine tension. The debrief that followed was one of the most powerful professional learning moments of the entire week.

The UN Vienna Visit: Connecting Grassroots to Global

Day 4 took the group out of the training room and into the world. The full-day study visit to the Vienna International Centre — the UN's third-largest headquarters — was designed to bridge the gap between the grassroots youth work participants do every day and the international institutional frameworks that shape the global peacebuilding agenda.

Inside the VIC, participants attended presentations from UN practitioners working in areas including disarmament, human rights monitoring, and multilateral conflict resolution. They had the opportunity to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and reflect on how global frameworks translate — or fail to translate — into the community-level realities they work with.

Then we visited the Europa Experience Multimedia Centre, where participants took part in an interactive democratic decision-making simulation. This was particularly valuable for South Mediterranean participants encountering EU institutional processes for the first time as professionals.

Learning Outcomes: What 28 Youth Workers Took Home

The competences developed during the training were documented through daily learning diaries, Youthpass self-assessments, and a comprehensive final evaluation. The outcomes were fully in line with the planned objectives — and in the area of personal and professional transformation, they clearly exceeded initial projections.

Knowledge Acquired

• Conflict transformation theory, including the Thomas-Kilmann and Galtung frameworks, and how they apply in everyday youth work and community settings

• The principles, origins, and methodology of the Reciprocal Maieutic Approach and its application as a tool for community-driven non-violent dialogue

• The intersections between civic disengagement, social exclusion, and conflict — and how youth workers can address these through structured peace education

• Diverse conflict realities across the Euro-Mediterranean region, providing insight into commonalities and differences across 8 countries

• Methods for facilitating group learning, designing conflict analysis exercises, and creating inclusive learning experiences

Skills Developed

• Designing and delivering conflict transformation and peace education workshops for diverse youth groups

• Applying RMA dialogue circles, World Café, Forum Theatre, and multilateral simulations in professional youth work contexts

• Communicating effectively within intercultural, multilingual teams across 8 countries

• Critically analysing conflict situations and applying structured frameworks to real case studies

• Structuring local follow-up initiatives that connect training learning to real civic issues

Attitudes & Behaviours Transformed

• More inclusive professional mindset with deeper sensitivity to diverse conflict realities

• Significantly increased confidence to facilitate peace education sessions

• Strengthened sense of civic responsibility — participants increasingly view themselves as peacebuilders and agents of change

• Greater empathy, intercultural trust, and professional solidarity across the Euro-Mediterranean group

After Vienna: The Follow-Up Across 8 Countries

All 8 partner countries delivered at least one local follow-up workshop applying the project's tools to real civic issues in their communities, reaching over 130 additional young people and community members.

Country	Follow-Up Activities
Egypt	3 workshops delivered, reaching 45 local participants across different communities
Tunisia	Multi-location sessions delivered across different cities and communities
Jordan	Community-level peacebuilding workshop on civic participation and conflict
Italy	Comprehensive resource compilation document covering all training tools created and shared
Germany	Online knowledge-sharing sessions adapting RMA methodology for digital facilitation
France	Online workshops and LinkedIn-based professional dissemination
Algeria	Community youth sessions introducing conflict analysis tools and civic dialogue methods
Austria	Internal organisational knowledge sharing and peer training for colleagues

Two New Erasmus+ Projects — Initiated by Participants

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the project's impact is what participants themselves decided to do with their learning. In the months following the training, participants came together to develop and submit two new Erasmus+ training course applications. Both were accepted and are now in active implementation.

The first New Project

“Art and Creativity as Catalysts for Empowerment and Wellbeing in Youth Work”

Exploring how creative methodologies can support mental health, wellbeing, and community resilience in youth work settings across the consortium countries.

The secind new Project

“Mediation and Advocacy Competences and Tactics for Sustainable Futures”

Building structured mediation and civic advocacy skills for youth workers in contested community spaces and policy environments.

Both projects directly extend the methodology and spirit of this mobility into new thematic areas and wider professional networks. They are the most tangible proof that this project did not end in Vienna — it continued, multiplied, and grew.

The Padlet Resource Library — Open to All

One of the most practical and lasting outputs of this project is the open-access Padlet resource library, co-created by participants on the final training day. It contains all the tools, session designs, facilitation guides, methodology notes, and supporting materials from the training week — freely available to any youth worker, educator, or civil society organisation who wants to use, adapt, or build on them.

A Week That Changed Practices, Not Just Perspectives

Twenty-eight youth workers came to Vienna. They left as peacebuilders — with tools, a network, and a renewed sense of professional purpose. Their communities feel it. And the work continues.

The Euro-Mediterranean professional network built through this project — spanning 8 countries across Europe and the South Mediterranean — is already active and generative. Partners are co-applicants in new funded initiatives, communicating regularly, co-developing ideas, and referring one another to new collaboration opportunities. The shared methodological grounding in peace education and conflict transformation provides a strong common foundation from which new project concepts continue to emerge.

We look forward to continuing to build this network and to sharing the tools, learning, and partnerships that this project has generated with the wider Erasmus+ and peace education community.