Barefoot Coaching
Results
This beautifully illustrated empowerment handbook is one of the core resources you’ll receive when joining a Innertopia Guide training. It’s designed to support you in guiding peer-support groups through meaningful, structured empowerment journeys. While it’s freely viewable here to give you a sense of what awaits, its full potential unfolds when you’ve taken part in the training and learned how to work with it in practice. So take a look—and imagine the possibilities.
Story of this Project
Barefoot Coaching – Empowerment from Within
Barefoot Coaching is an Erasmus+ project that brings self-empowerment tools to those who support others: volunteers, peer group facilitators, and professionals working with vulnerable communities. At its heart lies Innertopia – a self-empowerment workbook originally developed in the Hosting Empowerment project. Building on this foundation, Barefoot Coaching developed a comprehensive training program that enables people to guide others through a collective empowerment process – and to train others to do the same.
The program consists of two tiers: a foundational training for future “guides,” and a train-the-trainer course for professionals who want to deliver this training themselves. Both were piloted as face-to-face and online courses, refined through participant feedback, and accompanied by practical handbooks. These tools now support a growing network of grassroots facilitators.
Over the course of the project, 30 participants from 10 countries became Barefoot Coaches, with many also qualifying as trainers. Their backgrounds are as diverse as their applications: youth workers, educators, consultants, civil society leaders, and even HR professionals. Some are now leading their own Innertopia groups, while others have begun adapting the material to new contexts – from mental health support in the workplace to optional university courses in psychology.
The project’s impact exceeded expectations. The Innertopia material is now available in 12 languages and is being actively used in Amsterdam, Istanbul, Budapest, Kyiv and beyond. A business-adapted version is in the works. New partnerships have emerged, including with institutions in higher education, local government, and mental health care.
Barefoot Coaching is more than a training program – it’s a movement for participatory empowerment. It demonstrates how personal growth, peer support, and systemic inclusion can go hand in hand. It also shows the power of international cooperation: none of this would have been possible without the diverse perspectives, co-creation, and mutual learning among partners from across Europe.
The resources developed through this project – handbooks, curricula, course planning tools, and more – are available to support those who want to carry this work forward. Whether you’re a facilitator, trainer, coach, educator, or someone working in a community or organizational setting: if you believe in people’s inner strength and collective wisdom, Barefoot Coaching invites you to take off your shoes and join the journey.
Partners
host(s)
ERASMUS +
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union. Find more information about the program and its goals here: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Creative Commons license:
CC-BY-SA You are free to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes with mention of the source: Transformation Hosts International, www. hostingtransformation.eu. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
