Recruitment

advise you to pick exercises that can be scaled to suit different levels.

Always bear in mind: never allow a situation to unravel in which a disabled participant cannot join and has to sit aside. This project is about inclusion for all!

When you are not working with an established group of youth, recruitment might be a challenge. First of all, youth is not always immediately enthusiastic to share stories. Storytelling might be considered old-fashioned or boring at first. However, our experience tells us that most youth really enjoy such a workshop a lot in the end. They only need some support to cross the threshold.

A trick to convince participants to join, is to stress the benefits they can have when being able to express themselves in a strong way and to be able to tell their story properly. This contributes in a positive way to job search activities or in building a social network. And be aware that this is not even a lie: we noticed that youth really benefited from storytelling workshops in presenting themselves.

Another challenge might be the reluctance to join a workshop with youth from ‘the other side’. Why would someone invest in meeting others that don’t belong to their own group?