"""Green (r)evolution!"" was a youth exchange project promoted by Cooperativa Sociale Muovimente. It took place in the hostel of the village of Sermugnano, central Italy, from the 18th to the 26th of February 2017 (travel days included). The project involved 36 participants coming from six different European countries: Italy, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and France. The implementation of the project was preceeded by an APV which took place in Viterbo from the 27th to the 29th of January 2017.The project revolved around three main topics:• Environment and climate change;• Health and wellbeing;• Rural development and urbanization;The participants focused on important and current topics, such as sustainability, environment and active citizenship, they discovered more about those topics, brainstormed about ideas of initiatives and had the chance to become more active – at both local and international levels, and also acting for an improvement in favor of sustainability."

"""7 STEPS"" is a step-based international project, which aims to fight problems that youth from rural areas faces today. Youth groups from 7 countries will meet in Lithuania to learn these 7 steps that will help them to reach success in life. Our goal is to help young people feel more comfortable about themselves and have a vision in life, with the help from our partners we can change youngsters’ point of view and support them in dealing with challenges in their lives and in the labor market. A person with healthy habits, clear mindset, high motivation is more likely to get a job and/or start their own initiatives. The project aims is to empower young people to be more active and live healthy and successful lives. As the “Baby boomer” generation is going into the retirement Europe needs more young and creative people.This project aims to involve organizations that are working with youth from rural areas and groups of young people active in youth work. This will be beneficial for all sides. Youngsters from rural areas will have a chance to participate in international project and improve their competences for employability. The project focuses on 7 topics (7 different steps), which blends into one broad topic to fight youth unemployment, it is very important to young person, especially youngsters from rural areas. The youth exchange will include: Healthy Lifestyle, Motivation, Mindset, , Personal Development, Learning To Learn, Volunteering and Team-Work topics/activities. These areas are crucial for youngsters who want to be successful and competitive in labor market.Project will be organized with people with 7 countries (Lithuania, France, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Bulgaria). Each organization will have 4 youngsters and 1 group leader, target group is young people between 18 and 25 years old, recent school/university leavers/graduates.During this project we will use non-formal education methods and coaching techniques. This will create a suitable learning environment. Participants will be encourage to do their own initiatives and contribute to the content of the exchange, it will increase their sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.We believe that this project will have a lasting effect on the participants and help them to improve their capacity in labor market. We want that youth from rural areas would be more included and active in social life/labor market. This project aims to promote the idea of healthy lifestyle which is a core of success. ""7 STEPS"" is just a first part of continuous effort to fight youth unemployment and make lasting change in the society."

"""The Heart of the Story"" is an 8-day training course aimed at youth workers, facilitators and educators active in the field of youth, hosted by the organisation Coyote Initiatives CIC. The idea for our course is born from the deep knowledge that storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for education. It can address creativity, youth participation and employability, critical thinking and social responsibility. Europe at the moment is facing major problems. Among these, the dis-empowerment of young people who feel marginalised from society, can't find their place and don't know (or forget) how to realise their potential in life. On the other side, phenomena like hate speech and online violence (of which “cyberbullying” is only one of its aspects that affects young people directly: 52% of students experience it, and 33% receive some form of threats online. 84% of all cyberbullying takes place on facebook. Source http://www.statisticbrain.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/) are on the rise. Also, racism, intolerance and ignorance can be greatly fuelled by storytelling – as demonstrated by the strong use that every totalitarian government has done of it. The course will take place from 20th – 28th May 2017 and will take place in the workshop centre Newbold House in Forres, Scotland. It will involve 24 participants from 9 countries: Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and United Kingdom - plus 3 trainers and 2 staff members. The main objectives we want to reach are:- to identify and understand key elements and skills for storytelling, and explore their potential benefits for learning, personal development and employability; - to analyse the increased impact that stories (and media) have on phenomena such as “hate speech”, intolerance and open racism. We will discuss the new needs for awareness, ethics and knowledge that come with the social and digital era; - to explore the concept of “transformational storytelling”: using storytelling as an innovative tool to address change and personal development; - to use elements of gamification to make youth work more attractive and accessible to young people (especially marginalised YP); - to create an international network of youth workers and organisations, able to use storytelling to develop skills and methods and to have an innovative impact on local levels. The activities will be based on non formal and experiential learning methodologies, all centred on different aspects of Storytelling. We will work on the most classic and traditional forms (sitting around the fire) to the most contemporary, like cinema, comics and videogames. The expected learning outcomes for the participants are: - to be trained on, and receive information about, innovative approaches based on Storytelling, illustrating specialised concepts such as the Monomyth, the Way of Council, Gamification - and the work methodologies related to them - combining theory, practice and sharing reflections and good practice tips with trainers and colleagues;- to get more proficient in the understanding and use for educational purposes of Comics, Videogames, Board Games - all media very popular in the youth culture; - to increase awareness and learn how to better tackle in youth work their potential negative effects, as well: the risk of addiction and escapism from reality, the possible manipulation and propaganda uses that can be done by authorities, political and social actors, governments. Working with games and stories in education is our biggest passion, and we sincerely wish to see more and more people trained to use them, and as enthusiastically and sincerely as we do."

"Looking around in the World we see the rising signs of intolerance, racism and discrimination in the society, and mainly in media. The need we perceive in young people we are working with is to counteract to the mainstream media which fuels the intolerance and fear and to provide them with tools how to use the power of storytelling and also help them to be able to handle all these negative effects mentioned. Our perception was confirmed by our participants. Most of them is facing with the same challenges in their work.“What A Story!"" was a 8-day training course aimed at youth workers, facilitators and educators active in the field of youth. Our aim was to explore storytelling as a transformational educational method; and as a tool of promoting democratical values, inclusion, tolerance, empowerment and critical thinking of young people. We also wanted to introduce the power of Nature as an inspiration, as a safe background, as our strongest ally in this huge work of education.It was hosted by Ökoszolgálat/Ecoservice.The idea for our course was born from the deep knowledge that storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for education. It can address creativity, youth participation and employability, critical thinking and social responsibility. Europe at the moment is facing major problems. Among these, the dis-empowerment of young people who feel marginalised from society, can't find their place and don't know (or forget) how to realise their potential in life. On the other side, phenomena like hate speech and online violence are on the rise. From the feedback of our participants it turned out that these problems are even more present in the every day life and work in their countries.Also, racism, intolerance and ignorance can be greatly fueled by storytelling – as demonstrated by the strong use that every totalitarian government has done of it. The course took place from 12-20 September in Three Treasures Valley retreat center, Kisterenye, Hungary. We involved 28 participants from 10 countries: Italy, Czech Republic, UK, Spain, Romania, Poland, Greece, France, Hungary, Slovakia - plus 4 trainers.The main objectives we reached were:- to identify and understand key elements and skills for storytelling, and explore their potential benefits for learning, personal development and employability; - to analyze the increased impact that stories (and media) have on phenomena such as “hate speech”, intolerance and open racism. We will discuss the new needs for awareness, ethics and knowledge that come with the social and digital era; - to explore the concept of “transformational storytelling”: using storytelling as an innovative tool to address change and personal development; - to use elements of gamification to make youth work more attractive and accessible to young people (especially marginalised YP); - to create an international network of youth workers and organisations, able to use storytelling to develop skills and methods and to have an innovative impact on local levels. The activities were based on non formal and nature based experiential learning methodologies, all centered on different aspects of Storytelling. At least half of our activities were organized outside using the beautiful environment around the venue.The learning outcomes for the participants were: - to be trained on, and receive information about, innovative approaches based on Storytelling, illustrating specialistic concepts such as the Monomyth and Hero's Journey, the Way of Council, Gamification - and the work methodologies related to them - combining theory, practice and sharing reflections and good practice tips with trainers and colleagues;We introduced all three concepts in interactive presentations and also had several occasions to experience them in practice. For the majority of participants these were new and useful tools for their own practice. We also involved participant’s knowledge and experience providing them program slots in open space.- to increase awareness and learn how to better tackle in youth work their potential negative effects, as well: the risk of addiction and escapism from reality, the possible manipulation and propaganda uses that can be done by authorities, political and social actors, governments.Several workshops and presentations were provided to learn about narratives and counter narratives and work with them on different levels – cultural, historical, political.Participants came with curiosity about this phenomenon and they left with new knowledge about the importance and danger of storytelling and now they have new easy-to-use tools in their work with youth."

"""Share the Right Story"" is a 7-day training course aimed at youth workers, facilitators and educators active in the field of youth. It is hosted by organisation Act in Ostrava which has proven the capacity of organising international projects with its 2 successful projects in the last 2 years: SPECIAL EFFECTS: December 2014, Kaprálův Mlýn, Czech Republic - http://trainings.salto-youth.net/4504NATURE OF EVS: July 2015, Slunakov, Czech Republic - http://trainings.salto-youth.net/4969The idea for our course is born from the deep knowledge that storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for education. It can address creativity, youth participation and employability, critical thinking and social responsibility. Europe at the moment is facing major problems. Among these, the dis-empowerment of young people who feel marginalised from society, can't find their place and don't know (or forget) how to realise their potential in life. On the other side, phenomena like hate speech and online violence (of which “cyberbullying” is only one of its aspects that affects young people directly: 52% of students experience it, and 33% receive some form of threats online. 84% of all cyberbullying takes place on facebook. Source http://www.statisticbrain.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/) are on the rise. Also, racism, intolerance and ignorance can be greatly fueled by storytelling – as demonstrated by the strong use that every totalitarian government has done of it. The course will take place from 17th to 23rd October 2016 and will take place in the ecocentre in Kapraluv Mlyn, near Brno in Czech Republic. It will involve 26 participants from 13 countries: Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, UK, Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Portugal, Netherlands, Greece, France, Hungary, Ireland - plus 3 trainers and 2 staff members.The main objectives we want to reach are:- to identify and understand key elements and skills for storytelling, and explore their potential benefits for learning, personal development and employability; - to analyze the increased impact that stories (and media) have on phenomena such as “hate speech”, intolerance and open racism. We will discuss the new needs for awareness, ethics and knowledge that come with the social and digital era; - to explore the concept of “transformational storytelling”: using storytelling as an innovative tool to address change and personal development; - to use elements of gamification to make youth work more attractive and accesible to young people (especially marginalised YP); - to create an international network of youth workers and organisations, able to use storytelling to develop skills and methods and to have an innovative impact on local levels. The activities will be based on non formal and experiential learning methodologies, all centered on different aspects of Storytelling. We will work on the most classic and traditional forms (sitting around the fire) to the most contemporary, like cinema, comics and videogames. The expected learning outcomes for the participants are: - to be trained on, and receive information about, innovative approaches based on Storytelling, illustrating specialistic concepts such as the Monomyth, the Way of Council, Gamification - and the work methodologies related to them - combining theory, practice and sharing reflections and good practice tips with trainers and colleagues;- to get more proficient in the understanding and use for educational purposes of Comics, Videogames, Board Games - all media very popular in the youth culture; - to increase awareness and learn how to better tackle in youth work their potential negative effects, as well: the risk of addiction and escapism from reality, the possible manipulation and propaganda uses that can be done by authorities, political and social actors, goverments. Working with games and stories in education is our biggest passion, and we sincerely wish to see more and more people trained to use them, and as enthusiastically and sincerely as we do."