In may, the Erasmus+ training course "From Crisis to Chance" was held in Lisbon. It was about emergency pedagogy, which is a way to deal with personal feelings after a trauma or a crisis has happened. Mundus sent Elena, Emma and Jesús, three participants who are involved in the field of education and youth work. There, they learnt new methodologies and techniques to work with people who has suffered a trauma or a crisis. In this testimony, they go deep in explaining how the experience was. 

Being able to participate in the Training Course "From crisis to chance" in the city of Lisbon was a great experience, both personally and professionally. During this period we had the opportunity to collaborate, learn, enjoy and experiment with altruistic and good-hearted people. Each of the people attending this project contributed with their experience, knowledge and enthusiasm, making it very special.

There were three open-minded participants per country, who all wanted to make this world a better place, who fight for injustice and dedicate their time to improve the lives of those around them. Each one of the participants was open to new methodologies and action guidelines to know how to react to any situation of "trauma", trying to understand the whole process and acquiring all the necessary notions to react to any crisis situation.

In this training course we learnt a lot of theory about how trauma works and how we can help prevent it and heal it. We had several conferences by very knowledgeable professionals, in which we learnt about psycho-traumatology, psychohigiene, therapeutical methods... We also had a very interesting cineforum, in which we saw a documentary about the work of these professionals in natural disasters. Without a doubt, these theoretical workshops were incredibly useful for our future, and it was really interesting to learn about these concepts and theories in a dynamic way.

However, it was the ability to put it into practice that we appreciated the most. We personally participated in artistic workshops which are useful to implement with people in contexts of trauma. For example, we created figures with clay, we painted a mural, we sang songs, we played different rhythms… All these workshops were very inspiring and made us grow in a personal way, teaching us methods to use with children and youngsters.

Finally, we would like to thank both Associação Spin and Asociación Mundus for the opportunity to continue our training as educators, teachers and social workers, since we are convinced that this type of learning contributes to the fact that tomorrow we can exercise youth work with greater quality.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein