<< Objectives >>Being a youth workers is very rewarding, but often not an easy task. It requires not only knowledge regarding the specific thematic area we conduct our activities in, but also many other skills. Unfortunately, even though we do as much as we can to develop them (also by learning from our failures and mistakes), it is not rare that while working with young people, we have seen our shortcoming and things we could have done better. This is why, the idea of the training, that would allow to build and develop skills that are crucial for being an effective youth worker, appeared.In order to enable youth workers to conduct higher standard and more effective non-formal educational activities with young people, it was needed to develop their:- confidence and skills by conducting new, more engaging form of activities,- skills in responding for situations currently foreseen as difficult or challenging,- ability to respond to questions (that are currently often seen as difficult and problematic) in a way that would contribute to develop youth’s critical thinking and interest in a topic;- other skills that are useful for youth workers, which they feel they currently lacking (public speaking, group management, team building, facilitating discussions).The project was linked to the following objectives of Erasmus + for youth workers:- improved competences;- better quality of their work and activities in favour of young people;- increased motivation and satisfaction in their daily work.<< Implementation >>The main activity was the training for youth workers that was conducted in Murzasichle (Poland) between 29th September - 6th October 2022 (plus two days of travel).31 participants of the training (29 youth workers plus 2 trainers) from 9 countries (Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Spain, Ukraine). Participants from Lithuania could not participagte due to last-moment private issues (more details have been provided in the report section dedicated to challenges and changes).<< Results >>Thanks to participation in the training “Being a youth worker” participants have learnt (and practised) skills needed to feel more confident in being a youth workers, and to react to situations that happen during their educational activities, which they had perceived by them as difficult. Thanks to this, they are more open to use a new, more interactive forms of non-formal education activities, instead of presentations, which are not widely used also because they are seen as ‘safe’ (as one of the responders put it: “I just tell them how it is, so they usually don’t ask”). Thanks to this, and thanks to feeling more confident due to newly gained skills, youth workers have increased their ability to create an environment conducive to asking questions by young people, questioning facts and opinions, and in turn – developing their critical thinking. They have also increased their ability to respond to questions (that are currently often seen as difficult and problematic) while maintaining friendly and open relations with youth, what is possible thanks to remaining calm (instead of panicking or hiding that they do not know the answer, or avoiding such situation) and ability to search for answers together with participants. They have also developed other practical skills they identified as crucial to improve to be more effective youth worker (public speaking, group management, team building). Overall, they are able to conduct more effective and interactive educational activities, and more interesting for young people. They have also created their own list of skills they want to develop as a youth worker in a long term, as well as an action plan (with the method of small steps), what together with inspiration and sources for further work, they are more aware and motivated for future and regular improvement as youth workers.It have also had a positive impact on organizations (which, thanks to better prepared and more effective youth workers, are able to conduct higher quality educationala ctivities with young people), but also for young people themselves (as they can participate in more interesting, more interactive non-formal edicational activities, conducted by betetr prepared youth workers).

"Project ""Augmented Reality for Environmental Education"" will seek the possibility to use the Augmented Reality (AR) technology as an educational tool for young people in Europe. The main target group of this project will be youth workers and educators who are interested in new and innovative tools for youth education and engagement. With the aim of tackling the challenge of finding new education methods that are attractive for young people, project partners will create an educational tool with Augmented Reality application that will focus on environmental education. Taking into consideration the interactive digital nature of Augmented Reality application, this tool will be used to motivate young people to learn more about the challenges and possible futures regarding the environment as well as the change of habits that is needed in order to reach more nature-friendly society. Project partners will choose environmentaleducation topics and create scan cards-posters which will be used together with already existing and developed AR application, creating not only informative reading material but also complementary interactive educational content with images and videos that will give additional insight for each of the chosen topics. This educational tool created in the project will be available for printing out and using in classrooms as well as in a digital format online free of charge, therefore youth workers and educators who are interested in innovative tools will be able to access and use it within their non-formal education programmes and activities."

"<< Objectives >>The implementation of the ""Green is Calling"" project is dictated by our concern for the well-being of Planet Earth. Our goals are: - common work on building environmental awareness and sensitivity to climate change among the European society and young people from our partner groups.- our project is part of the activities of the European Climate Pact. The leader of the initiative group from Lithuania is the Climate Pact Ambassador in Lithuania.- in addition, we will gain comprehensive theoretical knowledge in the field of sustainable development, the ability to create interesting local eco-projects.<< Implementation >>Exchange participants are young people, aged 15 to 19. Residents of Central European countries: Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania - students, volunteers, scouts - actively involved in their institutions. Each group will be represented by 11 project participants and 2 leaders, maintaining gender balance. The exchange will take place from 10-18.09.2022, at the Forestry Promotion Center in Muczne, Poland.Within the project we will expand the knowledge and good practices in the field of ecology and sustainable development, through workshops with experts-practitioners. We will also learn the fundamental principles of project management. Transfer of knowledge will be based on elements of informal education, and through practical activities, during which we will prepare our own ecological project, we will systematize and consolidate the acquired knowledge and skills. Groups will create innovative educational game ""Green is calling"". After the exchange, the participants will present the acquired knowledge in their countries and encourage the public to implement eco-friendly solutions.<< Results >>The result of the project will be:- young people equipped with knowledge and skills in the field of ecology and sustainable development, who will be ready to transfer this knowledge further in an engaging and effective manner. They will become part of the European Climate Pact team - people committed to climate protection and ready to change the world.- the end result will therefore be a change in awareness and behavior among the European community based on the concern for a shared natural environment.The project will produce results such as:- youth proposals for ecological projects, or presentations and mind maps on ecology and good practices- we will create a publication ""Green is calling"" to inspire to pro-ecological activities and active participation in the Erasmus + network.- we will create an innovative educational game called ""Green is calling""- we will create viral videos encouraging pro-ecological attitudes"

<< Objectives >>Our project was aimed at developing and improving the understanding of gender equality in youth work, 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 creation. 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, they definitely offer a way for us to address all sorts of daily challenges that we are facing. Therefore, we designed our project especially in that context: to challenge gender clichés with rich and powerful imagery and tell stories with the visual language of the comics.Based on the results of the local research we carried out as a 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 in 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 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 to lend their support to involve youth in 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 that were achieved were as follows: 44 participants explored gender equity and inequity in youth work realities;44 participants share non-formal learning activities and creative exercises on exploring gender, the roles of the socially assigned behaviour patterns and emotions to feel about it. 44 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 the Jam Street Cafe 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 people12 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 “Vice Versa” –on exploring gender equity and combating inequality through creative tools and methods within youth work activities at 12- 21 November 2021, Manchester, UK. 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 44 participants and all were youth work practitioners: youth workers, cultural leaders and ‘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 of them 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 minded to participate in an international project based on 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 at a 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 these in the next 2 years based on the possibilities during and after the 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 peopleWe 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 the gender topic. They practiced their imagination 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 Jam Street Cafe in Manchester and 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, behaviour, access; f)Time: care activities, social activities; g)Money: financial resources, economic situation. Participants explored gender equity and inequity in our youth work realities especially in the context of work, education and health through local trainings on employment, inclusion, cultural diversity, migration, etc. with youngpeople with a refugee and migrant backgrounds.

<< Objectives >>In a report published by the Council of Europe Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) calls on Latvia to encourage the reporting of racist and homo-/transphobic hate crimes, promote the integration of vulnerable groups in education, language training, employment and health, and to provide for the automatic recognition of Latvian citizenship for children born to the so-called group of “non-citizens”. the report makes 21 recommendations to the authorities. Within two years ECRI will evaluate progress made with regard to two of them that it considers to be priority recommendations: establish a unit within the State Police tasked with reaching out to vulnerable groups in order to increase trust in the police and address the problem of under-reporting of racist and homo-/transphobic hate crimes; provide for the automatic recognition of Latvian citizenship for children born to “non-citizens”.Also according to a 2019 Eurobarometer survey, 75 % of young people who follow or participate in online and offline debates had witnessed or experienced abuse, threat or hate speech. According to a 2018 Eurobarometer survey, “hate speech is the type of illegal content most mentioned by respondents in 10 countries (in particular Malta, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Poland). While Estonia, Italy and Lithuania are the only countries where fewer than one in five say to have come across hate speech online”. Eurostat, in the document “Being young in Europe today” shows concerns about the behaviours of children and young people. According to the report, they may be exposed to potentially harmful content, which may create dependency, anxiety or aggression”. We intend for this project to meet some of these needs by supporting youth workers to have concrete and adaptable tools to enable them to recognise, challenge and ultimately transform hate speech to antidiscrimination messages through social advertisements. On one level the challenge lies with youth workers identifying the most effective and constructive ways to intervene and respond when discrimination happens in the youth space. On another, the challenge centres on how best to support young people in understanding the impact that discrimination can have, to know where it comes from, and to learn and challenge the attitudes that lie behind it. Our project seeks to address these challenges in order to create safer and more inclusive youth environments.As youth workers, youth leaders we work directly with young people and of course, we cannot know all the details as family life, religion, cultural background, etc. of our target group. So, several times we don’t want and we can hurt. We can hurt with an innocent joke; we can discriminate with a look, a phrase, an unconscious behaviour. Nowadays, working with immigrants, Roma people, members of different ethnic groups, or only with a young person simple, we cannot know which issue can be really sensitive, as e.g. showing a funny short movie about religion or women can be really discriminative towards someone and we even don’t know about it. We don’t know that we discriminate.By our project initiated by BIID (LV), YouthClub (RO), YOPA (HU), SENATE (MK), Elios (IT), Pro A (PT), FOB (PL), ESKISEHIR (TY), IO (LT), FAR (CZ), HYP (GR)we aim to make people aware of their subculture, their behaviour towards differences, raise awareness on their stereotypes and prejudices and spotlight when they discriminate others even unconsciously. Foster understanding how media effect their perspectives towards each other, how a joke can be discriminative even without knowing it. Then as next step, turn it upside down, use media as tool against discrimination. Use the popular tools what young people like nowadays for the sake of anti discrimination and even invent projects and build partnership around the topic as antidiscrimination by the tool as media devices.The overall aim of the training is to train youth workers and youth leaders on using media (jokes, short movies and advertisements) as tools on antidiscrimination. To make them aware of their own cultural background, and how it influences them towards different cultures. To foster understanding the reasons behind their reaction, stereotypes and prejudices, and to recognize discriminations around and by them. To learn usage of new media technology on antidiscrimination with for and by young people they work with such as Roma, minorities and migrants’ backgrounds.<< Implementation >>We apply for one activity entitled POP: Power Of Peace – Training course on stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination and how media can by useful tool for antidiscrimination and inclusion at 07-13.05.2022, Riga, Latvia. The course is strongly based on experiential learning (learning by doing), with adequate time allocated for debriefing and reflection throughout the whole program as the process will be highly personal and aim for attitudinal changes therefore the reflection is very important part of the process (as the educational team is well aware of). Generally, the working methods will be rather non-formal and participative. The methods are 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 is 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 are 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 planned to use e.g. individual work, pair work, organisational work, mixed group work, field activity, light theatre method, theatre of oppressed, Dixit card exercise, montages, interviews, statutes, debate, aquarium discussion, movie making, etc.Programme flow will be:Starting from Me as competence development;Put theories into practice regarding myselfPut theories into practice regarding to my target group as young people with diverse cultural background;Sharing and exchanging good practices for competence development of my target group;Preparing, shooting and disseminating social advertisements on combating discrimination among young people in the represented local communities;Inventing new local and transnational projects such as youth exchanges and youth participatory activities according to the proposals of Erasmus + programme with special focus on antidiscrimination.Theoretical parts of the training course:- To get acquainted with the formal and content wise criteria of youth exchanges and youth participatory activities within Erasmus + programme,- To explore the European Youth Strategy “Engaging, Connecting and Empowering young people” and the 3rd Youth Goal “Inclusive societies”;- Definitions of culture, cultural identity, cultural diversity and intercultural learning based on the approaches of the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations and UNESCO;- Definitions and examples of stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination based on the approaches of the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations and UNESCO;- IT technology as support tool for making social advertisements on combating discrimination;Practical parts of the training course:- Practicing to prepare, shoot and disseminate social advertisements on combating discrimination among young people in the represented local communities.- Adapting intercultural learning methods into the local and European youth work context of participants;- Inventing new local and international youth projects against discrimination of young people by using creative and innovative methods on competence development of local and European young people. Our target groups are the full time, part time and voluntary based staff of partners. Our partners specified their profiles and needs through S.W.O.T analyses and focus interviews with colleagues offline and online between September 2020 and February 2021:Professional learning needs of our fellow youth workers:We will have a deeper understanding on the roots, forms and consequences of discrimination.Our competences will be improved to address discrimination in our communities and we will contribute to breaking stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination and racism that are facing various groups in our local communities, especially minorities including refugees and migrants;Our competences will be developed to create and launch social advertisements’ campaigns, awareness raising actions fighting the roots of stereotypes and prejudices and fighting discrimination and racism;We will be competent to effectively use various media, including social one, as tools for awareness raising on the issue of discrimination.<< Results >>Impact on participants: participants will gain new competences related to areas covered by the training course. They will gain better knowledge of social exclusion and discrimination. They will better understand the roots of these issues, their impact especially on young people development. They will learn and explore new tools, activities that they can be implemented to fight discrimination and social exclusion such as how to implement local movie making workshops on antidiscrimination and how to disseminate social advertisements on combating discrimination of different culturally young people. They will increase their competencies to create and run social advertisements campaign and gain better understanding how to raise awareness of young people on discrimination. They will get information on Erasmus + Programme and its key Actions and activities such as youth exchanges and youth initiatives.All partners BIID (LV), YouthClub (RO), YOPA (HU), SENATE (MK), Elios (IT), Pro A (PT), FOB (PL), ESKISEHIR (TY), IO (LT), FAR (CZ), HYP (GR) have agreed on the importance of including people with fewer opportunities and it will be ensured by each partner to select at least 1 participant that are facing obstacles. During the whole project (preparation, implementation, and follow-up), we as a project team - partners, trainers, facilitators and coordinators will pay special attention to the involvement of participants with fewer opportunities.Besides new knowledge, our training course will have impact on attitudes of the participants. They will reflect on own stereotypes, prejudices, become motivated and empower to fight social exclusion, and discrimination. They will develop skills that they can apply in the process of looking of for new educational, volunteering or job opportunities e.g. they will improve their English, ability to work in intercultural team. They will develop their organization skills. Trainers will encourage the participants to share lessons learned with their colleagues and in their communities with aim to empower the participants to become active and take part in the process of creating socially inclusive society, promoting Erasmus + Programme and mobility opportunities for young people with fewer opportunities such as Roma, minority, refugees and migrants.Impact on participating organizations: the organizations were already involved in the process of drafting of this application. It means that they had the opportunity to increase their capacities in the area of Erasmus + Programme, project management of training course. By involvement in our training course, they will strengthen their competences even more. They will have an opportunity to create new networks, strengthen partnerships, to share their practices, to discuss the obstacles and challenges that they are facing in the process of fighting discrimination and social exclusion. In overall, they will increase their capacities to address these issues and they will learn how to organize social advertisements campaign to raise awareness on the issue of discrimination among young people in their local communities. The training course will be also an opportunity for youth workers coming from their organizations to increase their competences thus the organizations will have more competent staff and volunteers.We will prepare, shoot and disseminate 7 social advertisements on combating discrimination in the represented local communities based on the needs of our young people we work with in daily basis.1 social media portal that will present all social advertisements on antidiscrimination prepared by participants youth workers (7) and made by young people supported through local move workshops by participants youth workers (30) in the following 2 years.We will plan 30 local youth work activities to shoot social advertisements with, for and by young people in order to fight against discrimination towards young people with different cultural background in the following 2 years.We will invent together at least 16 youth exchanges, youth participatory projects and training courses in order to involve young people into intercultural teamwork and fight against social exclusion and discrimination of young people with different cultural background in the following 2 years.We will start partnership building among 12 local youth organisations of the host partner and the other 10 partners of our consortium in order to sustain the outcomes of our project within future intercultural cooperation.