Better Together’s main focus is a cycle of workshops cycle which aims to empower psychology students for educating others about most pervasive types of discrimination and means of combating it, as well as to educate high-school students about discrimination, encouraging them to tackle it throughout Europe. The cycle consists of five workshops, each lasting around three hours, delivered to approximately 20 high-school students once per week for five consecutive weeks. The structure of the cycle is being changed by the Social Impact Initiative team of 2020/21 mandate and is based on the feedback received from the previous waves.
This activity brings together active members of EFPSA, high-school students and local volunteers. All of them play some part in achieving the main objective of the project, i.e. empowering young people to promote social inclusion and take actions towards building inclusive and peaceful societies.
After successfully initiating the Better Together workshops in 2017, the second wave was launched between November and December 2018 with the total of 8 countries, 125 volunteers and 133 participants. The campaign was financially and educationally supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe in the second wave. The third wave ran in the academic year 2019/20. There were 17 Local Coordinators with 206 volunteers from 10 countries involved. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the work of LCs and their volunteers was severely affected as they had to stop working from approximately February until the end of the wave.
Campaign Structure
The campaign coordination involves several channels:
- The Social Impact Initiative Team
- Local Coordinators within different European countries to organise the campaign locally
- Local volunteers who conduct the workshops
The Social Impact Initiative Team provides assistance and mentorship to all local coordinators. The Local Coordinators’ tasks include: translating materials from English to their national language, promoting the campaign in their respective country and region, recruiting volunteers, contacting schools to schedule workshops, as well as organising training for volunteers. A ‘trainer’ is responsible for preparing the volunteers to deliver the workshop properly. During the training, volunteers review the workshop material, practice it, enhance presentation and communication skills, discuss potential problems and assess how the workshop will unfold with a specific group. The volunteers are then equipped to be the ones delivering the workshop to the students.
Get in touch:
You are studying psychology (at Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD level) and would like to take part in the Better Together campaign? The prerequisite for this is a current degree in psychology or one completed no more than two years ago. In addition to the workshops, we have regular meetings within our local groups. This involves organizational matters, such as the acquisition of schools or project marketing, as well as content-related matters, such as the preparation and debriefing of the workshops. In addition, we also focus on personal development, the focus is on getting together and, in particular, working together for a good cause.
There is no local group at your city yet? Contact us below to find out how you can set up your own local group and make Better Together grow and thrive in your area!
Feel free to reach out to the Better Together campaign with your inquiries via bettertogether@efpsa.org. We are looking forward to it!
Also, check out our social media work on Instagram to stay tuned with the latest developments and updates! @bettertogether_efpsa