The project contributes to the deduction of youth unemployment in rural areas, to empowering of youth entrepreneurship in Eastern partnership countries. It aims to improve capacities of selected organizations and their youth workers, to promote innovative mechanisms and rural development strategies to generate entrepreneurial opportunities for rural youth, to improve knowledge and awareness on how to harness the potential of economic mobility to promote youth employment in agriculture. The project aims to achieve the following objectives: 1) to introduce young people from rural areas to entrepreneurship as livelihood option through targeted outreached activities; 2) to support development and implementation of business ideas among youth from rural areas; 3) to connect various organizations focused on youth entrepreneurship and to provide them an opportunity to network and to create new partnership for potential long-term collaboration; 4) to strengthen competencies of NGO staff and capacities of organizations using ICT tools in entrepreneurship empowerment; 5) to create an educational online platform and to sustain its existence.

"<< Objectives >>With the youth exchange ""Disconnect to Re-Connect"" we wanted to address the influence and impact of social media on young people. Most young people use social media on a daily basis. Through this youth exchange, we wanted to develop their skills for a more positive and safer use of social media. In addition, with this youth exchange we wanted to address some negative impacts and effects of social media, e.g. cyberbullying or the impact of social media on young people's confidence and self-esteem, to open a discussion on these issues and provide insights and recommendations to young people how to reduce these negative sides of social media. Looking at the participants' feedback during and after the youth exchange, we can say that the participants found the project very engaging and useful, as many of them agreed that ""social media is a big part of their life"".The youth exchange ""Disconnect to Re-Connect"" was carried out to achieve the following goals:- Sensitizing participants to the influence of social media on their behaviour, with a particular focus on self-esteem and self-confidence;- Increase participants' skills to protect themselves on social media and use social media positively;-to familiarize participants with different approaches to dealing with social media and to support their critical view of social media;-Development of the competences of the participants, e.g. B. Communication in English, teamwork in a mixed intercultural team, problem solving, conflict management;-Improve participants' knowledge about the Erasmus+ program and support the development of new project ideas that meet participants' needs;-Share lessons learned during the youth exchange through online media and face-to-face activities in the clubs involved, in order to open a critical debate on social media in the participants' clubs.<< Implementation >>We ran a mobility activity - youth exchange. The youth exchange brought together 42 participants, including 21 participants struggling with cultural differences, social and economic obstacles. Participants with fewer opportunities were part of each national team and were supported by group leaders and other participants to take an active role in the project.Overall, the participants of the youth exchange are:-were young people aged 18-30 from the participating countries;-were interested in the topic of social media and motivated to explore how to use social media more effectively and positively;-were interested in exploring social media more deeply and learning how their peers view and use social media;-were willing to participate in non-formal activities and work alongside peers with the support of group leaders;-Had communicative English skills and were able to participate in the activities and express their ideas and opinions.<< Results >>Together with our partners, we agreed that the youth exchange ""Disconnect to Re-Connect"" was particularly effective for the participants and the participating organizations.For the participants directly involved, we felt that the youth exchanges helped increase their knowledge and awareness about social media, motivating them to use social media more effectively and positively, and making them aware of how to avoid the negative effects limit social media and protect yourself. In addition, participants explored the key elements of the project and learned how to craft powerful messages to use social media positively. In addition, the participants developed their competencies, e.g. B. communication in English, teamwork and problem solving, and learned more about the Erasmus+ program. We also see the positive impact in the fact that most of the participants expressed their interest in further developing their skills by participating in international mobility activities after this youth exchange.Regarding the participating organizations, we would like to point out that the partners have positively reflected on their cooperation and have expressed their interest in continuing the cooperation, e.g. we are currently (beginning of December 2022) working with our partners from North Macedonia and Bulgaria on a new project proposal, which they intend to submit in May 2023.In addition to the impact on the participants directly involved and the participating organizations, we believe that this youth exchange will also have a positive impact on the young people who will be involved in the activities of the participating organizations in the future, as we assume that the partners will Transfer what they have learned to their work and improve the quality of their social media activities.Regarding the results, we would like to point out the project blog: https://kostantinosaret.wixsite.com/disconnect-to-reconn and the project brochure available on the blog, which addresses the negative and positive sides of social media and is accessible to anyone interested in the topic."

"<< Objectives >>There are many challenges European societies face and priorities have been planned by the European Commission regarding these challenges and problems. One of the most important of these is the marginalization of disadvantaged youth, as well as healthy living and obesity are among the problems addressed in our project. Young people with conduct disorder and problematic backgrounds often lose their self-confidence and doubt themselves, while at the same time they face discrimination, negative stereotypes and increasing social barriers. One way to help them is to make them feel more confident with Capoeira. Capoeira is an African-Brazilian martial art that combines play, music and dance. It has previously been used as a therapeutic activity, proven to increase the self-confidence of people with problems and bring the community together.To solve this problem of social exclusion, youth organizations from Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Macedonia, Lithuania and Turkey came together for the project ""Capoeira Can Do All Things"". The purpose of this project is to enable youth workers to practice the art of Capoeira with the aim of healing. A training course was held in Rize on November 23-December 1 (+2 travel days) to address the main theme of the above-mentioned project (social exclusion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds), the following objectives were set:To promote capoeira as an inclusive and therapeutic activity;To provide youth workers with appropriate information about capoeira and its philosophy, physical and musical aspects of capoeira;Developing capoeira games that everyone can participate in;Creating tools for sharing competences and capoeira therapy tools among youth workers in different countries; By drawing attention to the importance of sports and movement and obesity, directing young people to active activities in order to have an active life;The project also aims to help participants increase their social awareness, skills and multilingualism.<< Implementation >>The following activities were carried out in order to achieve the previously mentioned goals:Providing youth workers with appropriate information about capoeira and capoeira tools for use in youth work:Learning about capoeira from visiting experts (EIG Youth worker Görkem and METU Capoeira, Rize Grupo Ax) - workshop on understanding capoeira;Capoeira movement workshops - participants learned basic capoeira moves that they can mix and match;Capoeira music workshops where participants will get to know the musical side of capoeira;World Cafe Discussions on ways to involve young people with fewer opportunities in dance, acrobatics and music.Interactive session with a psychologist (Simay Yılmaz, one of the EIG volunteers): on social inclusion of those with less opportunity.Documentary night - attendees will watch documentaries about capoeira's impact on communities; and followed by discussions on the documentary.Creating inclusive capoeira methodsSimulations and discussions determining how to solve various challenges while playing capoeira games;Creating capoeira games: brainstorming and team preparation - each team had to come up with a comprehensive capoeira game and shoot a short video or make a poster or another way to present the rules, goals and benefits of the game. All of the participants successfully completed these activities. This will then be used for results dissemination activities as well.To conduct a Youth Center applied therapy session. This has helped to see what works and what doesn't in capoeira activities.The visiting expert (Grupo AX Rize - METU Capoeira Society) gave a workshop on the safe implementation of physical activities. This has helped ensure that created games are safe.Introducing Capoeira as an inclusive hobby:Creating short motivational videos for young people with fewer opportunities to join Capoeira;Creating and applying capoeira games to disadvantaged youth (described earlier). This has promoted capoeira among disadvantaged youth in real time. In addition, local media were invited to cover the event;A public capoeira event for those with fewer opportunities. Again, participants publicly tested the knowledge they had learned with those with less opportunity. In this way, the public saw it as a good example of non-formal education. The Public Event and the professional flash-mob show were attended by participants and assisted the public to experiment;Planning for the future – how can participants introduce capoeira to youth in their area and lead capoeira therapy sessions? In addition, the creation of a guidebook for other youth workers. Other activities include team building exercises, cultural nights, assessments, meditation and more. All this helped the participants to get to know each other, create a relaxed atmosphere, build stronger bonds, get to know different cultures and better understand what they learned during the training course. By conducting this training course for youth workers, we will address current issues of capoeira therapy and make the application of this treatment in the daily lives of youth workers in the project partner countries easier.<< Results >>Participants have learned the basic skills needed to teach capoeira therapy classes and are able to integrate these newly acquired skills into their professional life as youth workers. In addition, all participants improved their teamwork skills. They had to work in groups to accomplish various tasks and learned how to effectively generate ideas in teams, develop their ideas and put them into practice. To create capoeira games, posters, vidoes and communication tools that explain these things, participants had to be creative and reach consensus within their groups, which improved their leadership and decision making abilities.Of course, the participants became more socially aware as they learned about the social problems experienced by troubled youth, the reasons behind it, and ways of coping with them. Skills such as cultural awareness have also been acquired, as people from different backgrounds will come together and learn. One of our goals was to make the participants more tolerant not only in their professional lives but also in their personal lives. The project also strengthened the solidarity of youth workers. They have seen how Erasmus + projects are implemented and have reached the capacity to do something similar in another country. Finally, they also learned how to use YouthPass effectively in their work with young people, setting goals, assessing personal information and reflecting.This training course developed the expertise of participating organizations in hosting projects on physically active therapies and projects aimed at working with youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Participating organizations learned new non-formal education methods that can be used in their future activities and developed their own competencies. At the same time, stronger ties were formed with the other members of the consortium and confident steps were taken to develop more projects together in the future.The project has increased the capacity of organizations to take part in similar projects in the future and the capacity to organize similar projects. As a result of the project, the international activity dimension of the joint organizations has expanded. The primary target group of the ""Capoeira Can Do All Things"" project was youth workers working with youth from problem backgrounds. Throughout the project, a specific guide has been prepared with information on how to lead safe and enjoyable capoeira therapy sessions which is to be shared online. Another way the project was disseminated among its target audience was by making videos showing how to conduct comprehensive capoeira games. These videos have also been shared online. Youth workers are encouraged to use these resources to learn about different treatments and to apply this knowledge to their professional lives.In addition, the project aimed to expand the role of physically active treatments for troubled youth. The aim was for capoeira therapy to be more recognized and used more widely in the practice of youth workers in Europe. We think that this reduces the emotional and psychological trauma of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.In addition to these, it was aimed to show that therapeutic sports such as Capoeira - Tai Chi can be applied to these methods in order to be adopted by the local people and to lead a healthy life. One of the sub-goals of our project was obesity and healthy living and encouraging people to take action. In this context, public invitations were made with striking posts on social media."

"<< Objectives >>The project was initially created because we wanted to understand the factors that characterize life for youngsters living in rural areas, especially for those who have the spirit of entrepreneurship. Nowadays opportunities, education and jobs are mostly centralized in urban areas and those who are living in rural areas are isolated and possibilities are way less than ever. Thankfully, we had the chance to implement the project ""Empower Me"" because we wanted to gather youngsters coming from different countries, living in rural areas, with lack of opportunities and infrastructures and together with their peers they had the chance to discuss and exchange ideas on the growing problem of unemployment in their environment. Participants from rural areas often face a big gap and disparities in income between their rural counterparts, and with the help of the project this gap can be narrowed and their chances to find jobs can be increased in their region or migrate to urban areas in search of new opportunities. Participants managed to acquire transversal skills and competences that are necessary to master in order to adapt themselves to a dynamic context of life and work. Another of our main objective has been the one that creates awareness among youngsters about finding a job, studying abroad or keeping tracking of progresses made on a broad set of skills, it is important that young people have a clear overview available of their skills and qualifications in order to achieve better results for the future.The project intended to foster a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among participants and to stimulate them to be entrepreneurs in the future. The participants also got to know about practical aspects of entrepreneurship and how to recognize it as a tool that has high potential for employment and income creation and provides a clear solution to the growing problem of unemployment, especially in rural areas. During the project, the young people had the chance to meet experienced entrepreneurs and hear their inspiring stories about starting their business, how they run them and recognize what are the main aspects of being an entrepreneur. Obviously, this was a significant result that we wanted to achieve because we wanted to give the participants the opportunity to meet entrepreneurs who told their stories to give the motivation and knowledge to enter this type of lifestyle. By taking part in the project, the participants had the chance to be in an intercultural environment, and interact with other participants who come from different cultural backgrounds but facing similar issues regarding rural areas. Together they were able to brainstorm and come up with ideas for solutions and establish networking for future cooperation and partnership.The main aim of the project is to tackle unemployment of rural youth, to promote the social and professional integration of young people from disadvantaged areas by helping them develop key competencies for the job market and fostering the development of an entrepreneurial mindset.We strongly believe that a geographical location generally viewed as unfavourable can be turned into an advantage. By implementing this Youth Exchange we would like to combat the lack of opportunities as we believe with necessary skill and competencies the gap between rural and urban youth can be narrowed. The specific objective of the project is to increase general employability, develop a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial skills of young people.Reach a better understanding about underlying causes of youth unemployment;As main objectives of the project we wanted to develop soft skills of the participants in the areas of teamwork, problem-solving, communication, decision-making and conflict management in intercultural settings to increase chances of employment;We also wanted to ease the creation of new networks and partnerships that can be used in the process of developing new projects and be able to provide space to brainstorm new entrepreneurial project ideas and work on their development with the support of group leaders and participating organizations.With the implementation of the project we wanted to increase capacities of youth leaders and young people in the field of social entrepreneurship, encourage and empower them to carry out their ideas, in order to embolden them to be the social change-makers in society, one of the best ways was offering them the understanding of their role and participation on the Erasmus + Programme and their opportunities related to the program.<< Implementation >>We did implement many activities, with clear aims explained before and reviewed after the implementation of each of them, as follows: - introduction of the timetable, icebreakers, name games, discuss expectations and fears, common rules (also safety ones) as an effective way of starting a Youth Exchange. - Getting to know each other and team building activities to start working together, e.g. using only non-verbal communication.- introduction in detail to the aims and objectives of the Youth Exchange and analysis of key terms such as unemployment, employability, non-formal education, entrepreneurship. - presentations about the situation of unemployment and youth unemployment in the participants' countries, and analysis on how their government tackles unemployment and of best practices and practical ways out from marginalization. During these activities, preparatory work involving discussions was as important as the presentation itself. - What are the top 10 qualities employers look for when hiring, suggested from the participants themselves. After brainstorming, we held a discussion as a whole group and write out the finalized list on the board.- Role-play and theatre of the oppressed, where they did simulate successful job interviews and phenomenon of unfair exclusion and discrimination when applying for certain job positions. - Interactive workshops.- LinkedIn and other platforms were presented to participants and a discussion followed it. - Round table discussions about possible practical ways to boost employment of young people in rural areas also with the support of a local investor coming from the rural area of Pescara. - Analysis of features of entrepreneurial mindset such as risk-taking, goal setting, time management, etc. - Treasure hunt, so that participants experienced a cultural immersion into the local life and learned more about its culture by interacting with locals.- Filed visit to a local entrepreneur.- NGOs Fair to present their sending organizations, their vision, mission, and what they do to tackle youth unemployment at different levels. - Erasmus + Programme presentation. - Evaluation sessions (daily, Mid-Term evaluation, Final evaluation, group leaders' evaluation). Participants of the Youth Exchange were 26, among which 17 could attend the project (the others couldn't enter Italy due to covid restrictions) and had the following background: - Most of them were aged between 18 and 25; - An average of 2 participants of each national group came from rural areas or were geographically disadvantaged, 1 in the case of Spain due to lack of participants; - Prior to the implementation phase expressed high interest in the topic of the youth exchange and in the Erasmus+ Programme more in general; - motivated to increase their entrepreneurial mindset and determined to turn their ideas and proposals into actions, as many of them indeed came with very clear ideas on possible businesses as they did discuss during their preparatory phase in their own countries; - driven to work in a mix-intercultural learning environment, and motivated to contribute at their best to the success of the project implementation (within the network we did recruit only participants that were interested in the overall aims of the project and not looking for a paid trip); - all of them had a medium/good communicative level of English, although no discrimination was made during the recruitment phase in this regard; Every group included participants with fewer opportunities from rural areas or facing social, geographical, cultural economic obstacles. Profile of the group leaders:- experienced in the Erasmus+ program, motivated to support those with less experience throughout the project. - management skills; - responsible;- no age limit applied in their selection; - good communication and mediator skills; - previous experience in the youth work field; - good knowledge or associate/member of the sending organization (trustworthy person).<< Results >>Key results of the youth exchange ‘Empower me!’ were: - boosting the employability chances of young people, especially for those coming from rural areas; - establish a dialogue with local decision-makers to tackle unemployment issues facing youth living in rural areas through, among others, the sharing of outcomes and results of our project;- increasing skills and competencies for employability of the participants and of the indirect beneficiaries; - increasing the staff capacities and wider the network of partner organizations;- launching new project ideas for enterprises developed directly by participants during the mobility, with the support of organizations involved; - drafting and publishing the ""Brochure of Good Practices"" (still ongoing) on youth employment and entrepreneurial best practices to provide young people with several practical information on how to turn their ideas into actions, realize their goals and make an impact in society. The Youth exchange ‘Empower Me!’ had a deep impact especially on involved participants, their peers as indirect beneficiaries, and their sending organizations. Involved partners have had strengthened their project management capacities, increased the networks of their partners, improved their visibility at the national and international level, and gathered new experiences, practices about project management and on dealing with youth from rural areas.The medium-long term impact on direct (especially) and indirect beneficiaries is the given by the development of skills and knowledge on entrepreneurship as a practical way out from the phenomenon of youth unemployment, increased self-esteem, teamwork capacities, valorizing their European identity and being more aware of the European values and of the opportunities promoted by the Erasmus+ program. We believe that they will be more willing to take part in future mobilities and develop future projects themselves to address common social challenges of their territories of origin."

<< Objectives >>Project was not implemented due to the pandemic.<< Implementation >>-<< Results >>-