About JOY

Society is changing rapidly, with increasing pace of change. Many young adults can’t balance anymore the (ever changing) expectations from society/school/work with their inner-self, their personal characteristics and their social roles
and they follow their own learning pathway.

The project Ode to Joy, is named after one of the positive emotions (joy, pride, contentment, esteem) which are catalysts for increasing people’s satisfaction generally in their personal lives and professionally in their work. Joyful people are more motivated to act and participate, are much less likely to experience burn out, and have a better mental and physical health and are more resilient towards uncomfortable emotions. We want to achieve this through fusing experience-based methods together, such as drama, bodywork, dance, music, symbolwork, storytelling, nature work, that help NEETs reconnect with their body and mind, increasing their ability to experience joy and to connect and through this experience develop a greater sense of attunement and joy.

Moreover, considering that the recognition and validation of the competences acquired in non-formal and informal settings is difficult but extremely important for employability and participation, the Ode to Joy project wants to intervene with specific instruments that are able to connect with the deeper layers of a person (invisible knowledge and skills, social roles, self-image, personal characteristics, motives, and underlying positive emotions) and use the positive emotions to make them visible and connect them with recognizable demands form companies/organisations, through valuation of prior learning.

THE OBJECTIVES