education

Adventure of the future: young people discover their strengths virtually

Last week, the project "come on tour - my strengths, my future" took place again. This year, however, there was a premiere, because "come on tour" took place virtually in Saxony for the first time.

"Come on tour - my strengths, my future" is the initial offer for career orientation from the district of Görlitz (school and sports office), the Bautzen Employment Agency and the Saxon State Ministry for Culture in cooperation with "Sinus - Office for Communication GmbH” for pupils in the 7th and 8th grades.

As in previous years, Saskia Heublein, head of the ENO education service point, took over the coordination and appreciates the format very much: "Normally there is a large adventure course in the Löbau exhibition hall on which young people have to complete many different tasks in order to gain 'strength points'. In this way, orientation is given in a playful way as to what would be easy to master for an individual professional career and what suits the talents, interests and abilities - a great format."

Normally, the young people have to put things in order in an apartment, repair pipes, take care of others (and much more), ie try out handicrafts or gardening, but also caring or artistic tasks.

Sure: this is - one would like to think - only possible with a lot of touching and grabbing, with communication and team play.

But how do you transport such an experience format in our time of contact restrictions? Can this work?

"Yes, it worked!" confirms Saskia Heublein and reports what happened between November 22nd and 26th at "komm auf Tour" in the district of Görlitz: "750 young people from 10 secondary and special schools and one grammar school took part with interest, joy and commitment and the virtual game stations were able to transport the normally very physical experience of this format into the digital world in a great way."

Under the motto "You can do more than you know so far", we went on a journey through six virtual game stations: from the travel terminal via the time tunnel into the labyrinth and from the storm-free booth via the stage to the evaluation. Depending on the choice of task and As a solution, the young people collected their individual feedback in the form of digital strength points and also practiced self-assessment.

At the end of the day, the young people discovered which activities and professional fields fit their strengths and which internships they could try out using so-called virtual “strength cupboards”. In addition to career orientation, life planning played an important role in the project. The young people deal with their dreams, role models and opportunities: "How do I want to live later - what is possible?". When solving action-oriented tasks, they were able to experience that they could choose between different options and make their own decisions.

There is no question that the young people enjoyed it. Many were enthusiastic, which also became clear at Saskia's digital parents' evening. Committed parents got tips here on how they can specifically support their children in the process of choosing a career and planning their lives up until they leave school.

Best regards!

Your

Yasna