Focus Group
Project “YOUth Ambassadors of Non-Formal Learning”
Country: Albania
Facilitator: Vilma Dervishi
Organisation: Youth 4 Society
List of questions
- Do you think for NFE is important age, gender, nationality?
For this question we had a big discussion where each of the participants gave his opinion. Four of the participants thought that age was a limit to learn through non-formal education the rest of the participants gave the opinion that there is no limit to learning under non- formal education and it not important age, gender or nationality.
2.What does NFE mean to you? Can you define?
The participants gave their ideas and they see non-formal education in this perspective:
- Non formal education is to learn outside of school curricula with seminar trainings.
- NFL is learning from activities and getting a certificate for a certain topic or cause.
- Non formal education is learning through games.
- Have you ever been a participant in an NFE program? If yes – in which one?
The participants had been part of training seminars developed under the Erasmus + program, some of them sharing their experiences and what they had learned. They had been in trainings in Albania in local activities developed by local organizations on topics such as gender equality, volunteering some of them share their experiences for trainings outside Albania such as Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia.
- Do you know something about Youth Law / Strategy / Action Plan, as well as other documents related to youth?
On this topic we had a long discussion with the participants most of them were not informed that in Albania there are strategies and youth law.
5.Have you ever participated in the youth decision-making process? If yes, in which one?
The participants had not participated in any decision regarding the youth.
- Do you think that more support from the Government is needed to improve the status of young people and in the NFE sphere? If yes, what are the benefits of this, and what are the disadvantages?
Everyone expresses the opinion that the government has been cooperative but I should do more in this area to support more and not only in Tirana which is the capital but also in the small cities of Albania. The government should improve the status of young people by giving them more space to express their ideas and opinions. This will bring a lot of innovative ideas and maybe better social politics.
- Does NFE activities help you for your personal development. If yes, how? If not, why?
We discussed this topic extensively as all participants expressed their opinion on how the activities developed in the field of non-formal education have had a positive impact on their personal development some of these qualities that they had acquired including:
- Group cooperation.
- Creating new contacts.
- Improving the ability to speak in public.
- Knowing different people who come from another culture.
- For you, why is it important to be involved in activities through non-formal education?
Being a participant in the activities developed in the field of non- formal education has a very positive impact on young people, each of them expressed this first by sharing their experiences and some of the conclusions we reached on this question about the importance of participating in activities realized in the field of non-formal education are:
- Receiving information on certain topics where there was no information
- Creating new contacts.
- Being cooperative with others.
- Learning more about new cultures.
- Certificates for trainings or seminars where they are part.