Between September 7 and 13, 2021, the Monomyths Association invited 30 youth workers from 14 international youth organizations to attend the Erasmus+ training course on the theme “creativity and innovation in youth organizations.” The course is part of the Navigators on Creative Seas project, second edition, and is co-funded by the Erasmus + program of the European Union.

The second edition of the project, coordinated by the Monomyths Association, supports non-profit organizations from the Republic of Northern Macedonia, Georgia, Jordan, Belarus, Ukraine, Spain, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Greece, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Albania as they explore methods and concrete tools for creativity, innovation, and design thinking to address the challenges facing young people and local communities.

The crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic can be an engine of creativity and innovation at national and international levels. The involvement of youth workers in supporting young people to deal with uncertainty and identify solutions to individual and community problems through methods of creativity and design thinking is necessary. Thus, through this project and training course, we aim to offer them the knowledge, tools, and courage to facilitate innovation processes in their communities.

During the seven days of the training course, the 30 participants designed five models of local interventions dedicated to young NEETs with fewer opportunities. In the coming months, the non-profit organizations involved will develop a creative map, useful for those who want to propose incubators of ideas through which young people can solve a variety of local challenges.

In the first edition, the Monomyths Association, together with its European partners, built the first Massive Open Online Creativity Course for youth workers, available free of charge on the Monomyths Learning Platform (https://learning.monomyths.ro).