In this article you will find ideas on how to improve your youth group partnership.
Anja Fritzanja.fritz [at] juropa.net ((anja[dot]fritz[at]juropa[dot]net)) can give you more information about partner youth groups.
General ideas
- Inform and involve the youngstars community about the partnership
- Publish flyers in the community/youngstars groups on a regular basis
Ideas for communication
- Start small
- Sharing experiences: of the children, as a leadership team
- Prayer mentor for individual children
- Regularly exchange prayer requests
- Exchange photos, e.g. leader photos, everyday pictures, photos of each child
- Shoot and send a movie, video message
- Children's profiles (with parents' consent)
- Fill out a friendship book for the partner youngstars group and the same from them. Each child fills in one page.
- Send specialty parcels, food parcels (parcel with culinary specialties from the region or country)
- Send an advent calendar
- Facebook/Instagram group...
- Send mails
- Write letters
- Video call with the two youngstars teams
- Joint blog / YoungstarsInt web platform
- Prepare a message in a bottle and send it by parcel
- Whats App, FaceTime
- Exchange language & culture (afternoon)
- Take over and try games from the partner youngstars group
- Solve puzzles/quizzes for each other that can be continued/solved the next afternoon
Project ideas or simply for in between
- Do the same sports tournament
- Carry out the same quarterly theme / semester theme in parallel
- As a quarterly topic the partner country incl. closing party, if possible with a representative of the partner youngstars group
- Exchange leaders at camps, approx. 1-3 people, same theme
- Joint camp
- Attend a course: Focus on training
- Doing theater and filming
- Circus
- Concert with songs from the other culture (musical)
- Interrail
- Olympics (mixed)
- Prepare afternoon for partner youth group, they have to carry it out
- Parallel to this, a youngstars group programm/afternoon by video call. E.g. a competition between the partner youngstars groups, which is always kept up to date via video call.
- Joint photo story
Picture credits
- Cover picture: Jeannine Weibel, 2013
