ERASMUS+ YOUTH (KA3) - Lidia Fernández is one of the youngsters selected by the European project Erasmus+ KA3 Youth at the Frontlines of Change: A Roadmap towards a collective "South-North-East-West" European Momentum. Lidia submitted a local project proposal that has been selected to receive one thousand euros, in addition to the necessary training, to introduce an emotional tool within further education training, using therapeutic theatre and yoga. In this article she explains the proposal in depth.

The KANOA project seek to introduce an emotional tool within further education training, using therapeutic theatre and yoga , with the goal of providing future professionals with personal self – awareness skills.

About Lidia

Lidia is a 27 year old, currently working as a social integrator and studying for a degree in social work. The continuous dedication she exerts in attending to different personal needs has led her to sense an important emotional burden, where she has been able to manage thanks to different methods of self-knowledge, together with her friend Marta, current partner of the KANOA project.

The environment which future social workers will work in is highly complex, this profession is going to expose them to certain life expereriences where they will be required to have emotional tools available to them to adaptively manage disputes and so they can constructively support the people who they are going to work with.

The KANOA project looks to introduce within further education training an emotional tool, using therapeutic theatre and yoga, with the goal of providing future professionals with personal self – awareness skills.

A short interview with Lidia

Who are you? What training do you have? How did the idea of the project come about?

I'm Lidia, I'm 27 years old. Currently I work as a social integrator and I'm studying social work, I am also educated in and have experience in the health sector. I have always studied and I have dedicated myself to working in sectors in direct contact with people, and accompanied with a significant emotional burden, have found different ways of learning and management. During this process I met Marta, my best friend and companion, we are two people with many things in common, most of all two creative people and dreamers.  After each one having lived their own experience and sharing them, we have created KANOA, formed by 2 different therapies, therepeutic theatre and yoga, which are connected.

Who is the KANOA project geared towards?

We find ourselves in the collective of social integration students, they are immersed in a Superior Grade with the intention of carrying out an academic training during 2 years to be future social integrators. Formal education is always based on the same methodology: teaching different subjects and the completion of practical exams to evaluate the learned knowledge. In many jobs this academic structure is maybe sufficient. We want to go beyond this structure, as to access the social realm we consider it desirable that a previous structure of social education is needed. We want to provide students with emotional resources to enrich human relations and improve the quality of the interventions that they will carry out in the future.

What can the KANOA project bring to the participants?

We sense the necessity to introduce another tool to this Superior Grade, therapeutic theatre and yoga. Our intention as students and workers in the field is to be able to provide future professionals with knowledge beyond formal education, in such a way that, before carrying out their placements as social integrators, they have worked introspectively on themselves, identifying and recognising their own emotions and those of others.  This need comes after carrying out different surveys and interviews to workers in the social field, the majority of them find themselves with the same problem; they qualify as professionals and they don't know how to manage different situations, since it is a profession that doesn't rely on a practical manual that has the solution to resolve the needs of the service users.

What does direct intervention with the participants consist in?

My proposal of social intervention is to create a project that gives emotional education strategies through yoga and therapeutic theatre to future social integration professionals, since they will need them with the complexity of the collectives which they are going to work with and those which they are going to come up against.

Emotional Education is the ability which equips us to recognise emotions, to be able to manage them and  to resolve a conflict peacefully.

Therapeutic Theatre serves as a therapeutic tool for participants helping their socialisation,
boosting their social abilities, raising their self esteem, security and confidence. The development of their skills allows the person to use a verbal and non-verbal language, through corporal expression, giving them the opportunity to change behavioural patterns and acquire new ones, stimulates attention, creativity and imagination through cooperative learning.

Yoga is a resource that provides emotional awareness, increase in self esteem, and personal self confidence. Pranayama is used to channel and reduce anxiety.

What will be the timescale of the project?

Depending on the schools and the budget there are various options: 3 monthly with 12 sessions, 5 sessions during the year between the beginning and end of the course and a 5 day intensive course during revision week.

What are the objectives of the project?

The objectives of the project are: to equip future social integration professionals with emotional management tools, empower them as professionals, provide them with conflict management strategies, develop their communicative abilities, produce an individual and group conscience of emotional management, and develop the social abilities of the chosen group.

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect 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.