When children move into early adolescence, they begin to take on new gender roles, often reinforcing socially and culturally conventional gender norms related to being women or men. These roles have an impact on the decisions that people in early adolescence make in relation to sexual and interpersonal relationships, which can affect their health and well-being throughout the rest of their lives. Gender norms and beliefs have significant implications for both girls and boys in terms of child marriage, early school leaving, pregnancy, HIV and sexually transmitted infection risk, violence exposure, depression, physical violence, substance abuse and suicide. Such differences are socially, not biologically determined. Mental health issues need to be addressed as part of adolescent well-being and in order to ensure health throughout people’s lives, it is crucial that countries address gender inequality, violence and healthy relationships in early adolescence. To answer these identified needs, through the adaptation and piloting of the Youth Group Methodology (YGM), developed by MARTA Center, as well as through qualitative and quantitative research in the field of youth well-being and violence, the project Re-GROUP has set as objectives to: - reduce risk factors for youth (ages 12-18) to become a victim or a perpetrator of violence;- build capacities in the field of youth work by adding to relevant research and adapting a culturally specific methodology thus prevent violence toward and among youth;- expand the size and impact of youth violence-preventing actors through training, popularization and multiplication of the methodology;- through broad consultation and cooperation with many local actors, create data-backed policy recommendations for each reality;- through further local activities and international cooperation within and after this project, take part in achieving Sustainable Development Goals #4, #5 and #16.The project, comprised of four project partners from EU countries (Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain) during its 22 months of implementation will engage youth workers, educators, young people, decision- and policy makers in the project countries and the EU. This will be done through the following activities: - Adapting and piloting the YGM in several communities in each partner country; - Conducting two international youth worker trainings, which will improve competences and support research efforts for the project; - National youth worker workshops in every country, with which to engage an even bigger number of youth workers and educators with the YGM; - Conductive an extensive qualitative and quantitative research on the well-being and violence in youth in the partner countries; - Creating Policy Recommendations together with a wide network of actors in the field of youth, with which to address the policy framework, as it relates to youth and their well-being (including violence prevention); - Promote the topic and the project results across youth and youth workers’ communities across Europe (via 4 National Multiplier events, an International conference and many informal meetings with stakeholders, as well as with a broad online campaign).The impact of Re-GROUP will span across the following target groups: - Youth workers, who will be participants in the Re-GROUP activities will increase their capacity for working in relation to gender equality, violence issues and youth sexual education. Participants will improve awareness of all forms of violence, experienced among and towards youth, and gain concrete methodologies, to prevent and combat it. - Youth (as direct beneficiaries) will gain competencies of building healthy interpersonal relationships through experiencing YGM; gain understanding and knowledge when, how and where to ask for help and search for support mechanisms for victims, perpetrators and/or bystanders of violence among and towards youth. The application of YGM also leads to numerous other positive results in youth. - Intervention sites of YGM implementation will raise awareness and increase sensitivity towards violence, acquire methods and educational tools on how to address a variety of topics, important for youth, and support them in creating and maintaining healthy relationships. - Policy makers engaged through dissemination activities and presentation of national policy recommendations will be invited and advised to critically analyze existing situations in local and national level and take needed steps towards combating violence among and towards youth. The Re-GROUP project partners are highly motivated to create worthwhile products and activities for this topic and will work to provide the best possible assistance to youth workers and educators, as well as the best strategically-aimed guidelines for policy makers and for the future of Europe.

<< Objectives >>Our project was aimed at developing and improving the understanding on gender equality of youth workers, youth leaders in order to become able to prepare, run and evaluate high quality youth work activities according to the principles of comics creations. We are surrounded by gender. It manifests itself as a pattern of relations that develop over time to define male and female, masculinity and femininity, simultaneously structuring and regulating people’s relation to society. Gender is embedded in our institutions, our actions, our beliefs, and our desires. It is rooted in the family, the neighbourhood, church, school, the media, walking down the street, eating in a restaurant, going to the restroom. Gender is asymmetrical. Whatever a person may feel about their current position on the social ladder, there is no question that male and female are not simply two equal sides of a coin. Inequality is built into gender at a very basic level, and what we experience as individuals emerges within a far-reaching social order that oppresses each of us. While the world is still obsessed with the continual differentiation of male and female, it is our job as youth workers to examine gender from a new perspective and research how this dichotomy came to be seen as common sense and contribute to our oppression. With our comics we wanted to look beyond the gender binary and try to re-appropriate it. As images are quite powerful in sending messages to young people, it is definitely a way for us to address all sorts of daily challenges we are facing. Therefore, we designed our project especially in that context: to challenge gender clichés with rich and powerful imaginary and tell stories with the visual language of the comics.Based on the results of the local researches, as consortium we had defined our common objectives and possible solutions for it through this project proposal such as to train youth workers lending their support to involve youth for gender equality. Gender equity and inequality were addressed through the use of creative digital tools because images are a powerful tool for reflection and call to action, and digital media has the widest impact reach. It was aimed at to bring everyone’s messages for gender equity and equality through comics that we also put in a joint comic book and presented in a public exhibition in our Youth Centre of Valdagno.So the overall aim was to train youth workers lending their support to involve youth for gender equality. Gender equity and inequality were addressed through the use of creative digital tools because images are a powerful tool for reflection and call to action, and digital media has the widest impact reach. It was aimed at to bring everyone’s messages for gender equity and equality through comics that we also put in a joint comic book and presented it in a public exhibition in the Youth Centre of Valdagno.Objectives were: 28 participants explored gender equity and inequity in youth work realities;28 participants shared non-formal learning activities and creative exercises on exploring gender, the roles of the socially assigned behaviour patterns and emotions to feel about it. 28 participants practiced digital youth work tools such as making comics and improve their digital youth work competences in order to fight against gender inequality. 1 public comics’ creation exhibition was implemented in Youth Centre of Valdagno in order to promote gender equality in the local community with for and by young people with fewer opportunities. 1 digital booklet was made including all digital youth work tools for promoting and supporting gender equality among young people: https://studioprogetto.org/womenity/12 youth exchanges were invented in order to support gender equity for young people from rural areas, having Roma, minority, refugees and migrants’ background.<< Implementation >>We implemented a training course entitled “Womentity” –on exploring gender equity and combating inequality through creative tools and methods within youth work activities at 09 – 18 December 2021, Recoaro Terme, Italy. The course was strongly based on experiential learning (learning by doing), with adequate time allocated for debriefing and reflection throughout the whole program as the process was highly personal and aimed for attitudinal changes therefore the reflection was very important part of the process (as the educational team was well aware of). Generally, the working methods were rather non-formal and participative. The methods were chosen in a way to allow for a maximum of substantial learning effects, meet the needs of the group and encourage a high level of participation in a very unique way in the process of the training. It was very important to take the “real-life” cases and the experience of the participants, their organizations and from other youth workers and from the field. The working methods used this training were chosen so that to offer the possibility of equal involvement of each participant, every person being stimulated to dialogue and intercultural learning, to reflection and experiential learning, to activation of personal resources. Methods were used e.g. ice-breakers, name games, short activities allowing participants to learn each other’s names, team-building activities, energizers, small group work, large group work, simulation activities and role plays, media workshops (new media, social media, multimedia), dance workshops, intercultural activities, open-space activities, peer review, self-evaluation.We hosted 28 participants and all were youth work practitioners: youth workers, cultural‘animators’ working with youth and youth support workers. Their target groups are rural youth, unemployed young people, minority members, young refugees and migrants.Our participants were all were identified and selected by our project partners. All they had the experience of working with young people from disadvantaged living conditions; rather of ethnic origin (Roma), migrants, refugees, young people from rural areas, and young people with disabilities. Each participant had either a personal or a professional link to the objectives of our project. All of them worked with young people with fewer opportunities in daily basis and were eager to learn a new method how to support gender equality in their local communities based on their interests and needs of the local communities. This project was a great learning opportunity for our participants and also for young people they work with in daily basis. There was a minimum requirement for all participants to be motivated and open mind to participate in an international project and towards gender equality. It was an advantage if they had previous experience in non-formal educational activities, in gender equality topics or in international activities - there was also a chance for participants with fewer opportunities because all project partners have undertaken such cooperation in the past.It was very important for all participants to have the ability to speak English - this was the key aptitude for managing the project.<< Results >>We planned 10 exhibitions in local level per partner based on the needs of our target groups through comics creations in order to support gender equality of young people with fewer opportunities and we will implement it in the next 2 years based on the possibilities during Pandemic.We have an ongoing exhibition in our Youth Centre of Valdagno on the prepared comics’ creations by participants.We published an e-booklet on digital and offline youth work methods on promoting gender equality among young people: https://studioprogetto.org/womenity/We planned together 12 international youth exchanges on promoting and supporting gender equality through comics’ creation supported by Erasmus+ programme in the next 3 years as outcomes of this project and we will apply and implement them in the following years. We had started partnership building among partners of our consortium in order to sustain the outcomes of our project within future intercultural cooperation. Professional learning development of our fellow youth workers, youth leaders as participants:They practiced how to make a storyboard for a comic creation. They practiced making a photonovela on gender topic. They practice their imaginations and writing skills in order to improve their comic creation. They explored how to communicate from such type of topics such as gender vs sex, lgbt+ rights, abortion and feminism with different target groups. They practiced to write storylines on gender issues based on DADA inspired gender poems. They created comics on chosen gender issues and presented it in the local exhibition in the Youth Centre of Valdagno and in the digital booklet of the project. Participants finalised their gender comics’ creations on choosing one of the gender issues a)Power: political, economic, social; b)Knowledge: attainment, segregation; c)Work: participation, segregation and quality of work; d)Violence: prevalence, severity, disclosure; e)Health: status, behavior, access; f)Time: care activities, social activities; g)Money: financial resources, economic situation. etc.

The ID Pro project seeks to establish protocols that facilitate the work of educators, youth workers, educational leaders and support staff working on mobility projects, both within the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme and other international mobility programmes.The partnership is coordinated by the Mundus Association (Spain) and formed by the organisations LEAPS (Scotland), CESIE (Italy) and Marta Centre (Latvia).The objectives of the project are:- To exchange good practices on prevention, action, mediation and/or reconciliation measures in the face of discriminatory attitudes and violence among and towards young people.- To design prevention, action, mediation and/or reconciliation protocols adapted to the reality of European Mobility (both within and outside the Erasmus+ programme).- To enhance the quality of mobility projects by ensuring an inclusive and equitable access to educational opportunities abroad through the implementation of these protocols. - To establish the basis for the creation of a quality standard through the implementation and promotion of the mobility protocols generated during the ID Pro project in other Erasmus+ projectsThe project has the following activities:- 3 transnational project meetings to ensure a better management, coordination and supervision of the project- 3 LTTAS to share good practices and distil the useful learning for the elaboration of the protocols.- Multiplier events to promote the protocols (the handbook) as good practices and to study the reception of the idea of quality standards in mobility projects.- The elaboration of 1 manual with the protocols and a general framework about the protocols, their use and adaptation.The most relevant results and impact expected are the following:1. Participants:- Development of competences of youth workers and educators through the exchange of good practices.- Improved awareness of forms of violence by obtaining concrete methodologies to prevent and combat it.2. Participating organisations:- Diversification of the organisation's experience and awareness of the different forms of violence, how to identify them and how to act on different cases and profiles of aggressors and victims, or with different groups- Development of action protocols in cases of violence or discrimination before, during and after the mobility.3. Target groups:- Improvement of the quality of the mobility projects in terms of inclusion, diversity, preparation of the participants.- Increased or easier access to mobility opportunities for groups at risk of exclusion.4. Other relevant groups:-Local community: increased awareness and sensitivity to violence through a deeper understanding of the phenomena of victim and bystander blame.- Education professionals: the handbook on protocols will provide educational methods and tools to address a variety of issues important to young people, and support them in creating and maintaining healthy relationships.- Youth policy makers: they will be invited to participate by disseminating and presenting policy recommendations promoting inclusion and diversity and to critically analyse the situations existing at local and regional level and take the necessary measures to combat violence among and towards young people.

Prevention++ is an initiative that comes to tackle one major challenge for the EU community at a general level, and for vulnerable communities in particular: addictions. The topic is well known, approached in many academic papers, while professionals active in health system and in national authorities are designing various schemes to hinder mass phenomena among young people. There are many regional, national and international campaigning that aim at reducing the incidence of addictions, nevertheless the majority are focused on intervention and rehabilitation measures of those who are severely affected by addictions. Just few initiatives have channeled their resources exclusively on the preventive and implicitly educational side of the phenomenon. Similar to other threatening social phenomena among young people (illiteracy, school dropout, early crimes, etc.), when talking about addictions, the resources of public initiatives are channeled to fight against the effects, to the detriment of early identification of causes. For example, alcoholism is often rooted in the precarious family environment, marked by domestic violence and intolerance, inflamed by poverty and lack of involvement of local authorities. Members of the addicts’ communities are not supporting them almost at all when comes to rehabilitation, therefore the sooner preventive education is present into youngsters’ environment, the lower is the risk of social exclusion for them.For two years, three NGOs from Romania, Austria and Latvia will develop a polyvalent and comprehensive prevention manual, with three components: 35 NFL methods with adaptations for disabilities, learning difficulties, illiterates; guidelines for delivering preventive work; guidelines for creating prevention campaigns. With 90-100 A4 pages, the manual aims at providing a clear practice for working against tobacco, alcohol and cannabinoids abuse disorder.Within three international learning activities, 36 youth workers and volunteers will be equipped with an extended set of competences that will empower them to deliver prevention work in their communities. They will develop, test and upgrade the non-formal methods in multiple local actions, engaging with minimum 180 youngsters/partner. Most of these youngsters are facing vulnerabilities that increases the risk of social exclusion and are fueling an addictive behavior: ethnic minorities, illiterates, poverty, precarious family background, disabilities. In their communities, these factors are combined and are increasing the risk of addictive behaviors. We aim at working with an age range of 13-21 y.o. from both urban and non-urban areas. Project’s objectives:•By the end of the project, 75% of the youth workers and volunteers involved will demonstrate advanced content knowledge of prevention work as measured by assessing outcomes on ex-ante and post project’s development.•Raising the level of awareness with at least 50% among the participants involved in local actions of the relation between substance abuse disorder and social exclusion, employability, health, financial and social status by the end of the project, through NFL methods developed in a prevention manual. •Granting access to preventive education for minimum 1000 beneficiaries/partner by the end of the project, by transferring the practice of preventive education as an optional or compulsory object in the curriculum of 10 organizations/partner within project’s duration.We are going to develop a durable network of youth workers in those communities where vulnerable youngsters are living around factors that fuel the risk of social inclusion, by increasing their knowledge of the impact caused by addictions on personal and community level and increasing their self-confidence in working with vulnerable young people. Also, they will have a deepened understanding of social topics from the communities where they are active. The young people involved in the local activities will increase their decisional self-confidence in relation to addictive substances and they will adopt a conscious and critical attitude towards them. They will also increase their self-esteem knowing that the EU and the society is concerned about the risks they are facing and that their community is taken care of and will also develop a better capacity to empathize and relate with youngsters affected by substance abuse disorder. Our final goal of the project is to create all the prerequisites for transferring the prevention work in the curriculum of minimum 10 organizations/partner: schools, NGOs, youth clubs, service support providers that would grant access to minimum 1000 beneficiaries/country. All the activities and resources involved in this project are channelled into ensuring that the prevention work will become a practice in the comunities where we will be present.

"HEARTLAND aims to address adult educators and other helping professionals with high risk of burn out to develop their competences through creativity and art embedded into the activities and the intellectual outputs of the 24 month collaboration.The phenomenon of burnout within helping professions - including educators - has been known since the 1970s, and by now a solid research and practical intervention basis exists linked to it. However, burnout continues to be a severe issue until today. Also experiencing the covid pandemic outbreak in spring 2020 and its effects on people in general but on health- and social care workers in specific ( post traumatic effects) we decided to further develop our toolkit HEART with a higher emphasis on creative tools: art and culture: common issue exhibition - to give a response of what the global world faces as a mutual challenge.To tackle above issues, a transnational partnership composed of 5 partners (PPs) concerned about burnout and resilience and art in the field of education of 5 countries developed the HEARTLAND project. Two PPs are experts in adult education using outdoor experiential educational methods Elmenyakademia (HUN) - who is the coordinator organization and additionally addresses solution focus coaching methods - and Outward Bound Romania (RO) who has expertise in psychoeducational tools due to academic connections as well), one PPs is adult education expert using artistic methodologies (LE PT), MARTA (LV) carries out courses for adults focusing on crisis management and mental first aid and PTS growth and Badgecraft Ireland has waste cross-sectorial practical, theoretical and research expertise in the topic of on-line learning modules for adult learners.To reach our objectives, the HEARTLAND partnership uses a methodology based on transnational, holistic and positive approach and the synergy of 7 methods, focusing on the resilience processing through arts of our main target groups: the adult learners, educators and social- and health care workers and their organizations Europe-wide. To achieve our goals, we’ll develop an Extended collection of Easy to Learn and Resilience Tools and Processes (including a Self-directed learning portfolio) and an innovative ExtendedCombined Modular Resilience Curriculum - Training Scheme to offer an innovative creative educational material at individual (personal and professional) level. These two outputs will use an innovative methodology, the HEARTLAND methodology (the synergy of 7 methodologies) covering the whole human potential addressing all: body, soul and mind and giving answers for crisis situations. The above 2 outputs will be channeled into a 5 module on-line course material in order to ensure Europe-wide application of HEARTLAND methodology as such. In addition, we’ll also work out Organizational Resilience Recommendations and Adaptation Strategy that offer alternatives for social- and health care workers and their institutions at grass root level. Moreover, the impact of the methodology will be summarized in an Assessment Report. As for the long-term work engagement of HPs and social- and health care workers we introduce a new innovative output - culural eventing: common issue exhibition IO6 ""Our Evereday Heroes"" in order to raise awareness about resilience of HPs within pandemic situation and in general. The event also supports HPs to raise their voice and to address their management and policy makers on the field.During HEARTLAND activities 2 staff trainings, 6 field tests, 1 discussion workshop and 2 international and 4 national dissemination events will be held for HEARTLAND staff/volunteers and social- and health care workers and for other external stakeholders. Thanks to the implemented project activities, we will directly reach 460 persons active in the field of adult learning and we’ll contribute to increase their competences to face burn-out, thus, their resilience, professional satisfaction, the quality of their work will increase. 5 organizations will have a more modern, dynamic, committed and resilient work environment and higher understanind of how arts and culture can have a positive impact on that.Moreover, we aim to share and disseminate our results at a European level as well. On a long run we plan to familiarize 30 adult educator organizations (incl. min. 900 persons) from the partner organizations’ countries with the developed outputs and methodologies Europe-wide. Additionally, we plan to introduce our outputs and results in 10 additional countries.Sustainability on a personal (professional) level will be backed by the “personal resilience shields” , on-line learning modules and exhibition webpage as best practice.This, plus the creative holistic approach used, covering the development needs at individual and organizational levels, are also expected to enhance the impact and sustainability of project results."