What happens when you bring 25 passionate youth workers from 16 different countries together under the warm Spanish sun? You get an explosion of non-formal learning, intense collaboration, and concrete strategies to bulletproof youth organizations against modern crises. Hosted in vibrant Benalmádena, our Erasmus+ training course, "Organizational Development for Preparedness," focused on moving NGOs from a reactive stance to proactive resilience.
The Mission and Methodology: Learning by Doing
We skipped boring lectures and dry presentations. Instead, the entire 5-day agenda relied on non-formal education, interactive games, and peer-to-peer learning. From the moment we kicked off with team-building dynamics, music games, and our unique expectations wall via Mentimeter, participants were immersed in hands-on activities.
- The Causeland Game: Tables represented distinct NGOs managing simulated crises, allocating resources, and resolving red flags together.
- Preparedness Theatre: Teams acted out based on real organizational crises like losing the leader or zero budget left.
- Financial Resilience & The Banana Game: Splitting simulated resources across staff, travel, and operations to survive funding shocks.
- Open Space & Erasmus+ KA Corners: Exploring Key Actions (KA152, KA153, KA210, KA220) to plan future joint projects.
Study Visit to Oracle Malaga: Cybersecurity is Care
A major highlight of the week was our study visit to Oracle in Malaga. We had an eye-opening session and presentation on NGO cybersecurity by Georgiana Nutu (Technical Program Manager, Microsoft). We learned that cybersecurity is simply digital care—protecting the vulnerable beneficiary data we hold and applying basic habits like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), secure passphrases, and rigorous data management. The session wrapped up with an engaging Formula 1 simulation game built on Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Bull partnerships.
What We Took Home
Participants did not just enjoy the Costa del Sol sun and dancing energizers; they built tangible outputs. Each organization developed custom Mini-SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) covering emergency response, staff handovers, wellbeing, conflict management, and grant reporting. We finalized individual Transferability Action Plans to ensure our communities back home directly benefit from what we learned.
