"Acting Youth, Get SMACT (GeS) aims to increase the competencies of youth workers in EU and WB on media literacy. Our objective is to build the skills and the capacities of youth workers to assess and to have a critical understanding of the media, as well as to interact with the media. This will enable the youth workers of partner countries NGOs to navigate the modern news and to take informed decisions. Media literacy is very important for European Youth. As mentioned in the policies of European Union ""media literacy is vital for economic growth and job creation. Digital technologies are a key driver of competitiveness and innovation in the media, information, and communication technology sectors"". The EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 and its eleven European Youth Goals also indicate the need of young people to increase their competencies. The target groups of this project are youth workers working with young people and high school teachers. Youth workers especially from Western Balkan countries need to get more knowledge, improve their skills on media literacy and critical thinking. In this aspect youth CSO’s need to raise capacities by training their youth workers in media literacy. An important part of the project is the interaction with media, a necessity for the civil society to raise its impact in the community. Also, we are targeting high school teachers to raise their capacities in media literacy, aiming to reach more young people in each partner country through education system. Combining local actions and news technologies with non-formal education methodology and mobility activities will enable young people to have an inclusive and active participation in the local & European level and build their competencies.550 young people will benefit directly from the planned actions and over 50000 people will be involved indirectly through the activities in local and European level."

The project FASHIORATION is centered on the innovative combination of youth work and the valorization of intangible cultural heritage in order to increase the employment of marginalized youth. PUMART aims to develop the capacities of youth workers to utilize traditions related with the fashion in order to promote youth employment. It is recognized that the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage brings important social and economic value. In the same time youth unemployment is very high especially among young people that have recently inhabited urban centres. In this framework, the consortium will focus on issues as local traditions related with masks and puppets, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, community based tourism, cultural management, marketing of cultural heritage related projects etc. The project is going to organise three capacity building seminars, addressed to youth workers, a guide for youth workers, fashion galas and an international festival. The project will be implemented by 5 partner organisations from 5 Balkan countries. All activities are based on a variety of non-formal educational methodologies, including seminars, study visits, debates. The project is going to develop a number of open educational resources for the youth workers. At the end of the project, it is expected that youth workers and young people are going to develop significantly their skills in relation with the use of intangible cultural heritage as a source of local development and social inclusion for marginalized people.

PROJECT Raising Environmental Sustainability Through Art (REST_ART)Environmental awareness is to understand the fragility of our environment and the importance of its protection. Aesthetic practices that take up political disruption are not simply raising awareness or communicating messages. This is not politics as propaganda. Instead, aesthetic practices operate through a ‘radical uncanniness’ that realigns, disrupts, and reinvents political engagement as material and sensible events (Rancière, 2004 [2000]). An artwork that is visually memorable, seductive, surprising, and shocking can etch itself in people’s minds in a way the written word can struggle to do.The project aims to present, raise awareness, sensibilize and prevent harmful attitudes against the environment through artwork. Through the scheduled mobilities the project envisions acknowledging Art as a strong influence on issues related to environmental preservation. Artworks are essential tools for ecological activism that alert the population to urgent matters, facilitate understanding messages about sustainability, and help mobilize people to fight for this cause. In addition, the Consortium will implement a comparative approach and photography research to shed light on the plastic waste management of the respective cities of the consortium, as a tool to exercise pressure on the Municipalities through its dissemination and communication.Target Groups•Youth workers, •Youngsters, Young people with fewer opportunities•Youth organizations•General publicMore specifically the project’s objectives concern the:•Introduction of young people and youth workers to environmental awareness •Creation of artworks from single-use of plastics, as a medium to tackle the use of single-use plastics•Adoption of good practices to reduce and manage plastic waste•Comparative research of the engaged countries to address major environmental issues and exercise pressure in the respective Municipalities

Virtual Exchanges for Balkan Youth (VEBY) is a 3-year project that focuses on enhancing the participation of young people with fewer opportunities in virtual mobilities, and the building the skills of youth workers and educators to foster such inclusion, along with medialiteracy and peacebuilding attitudes. The Project's consortium consists of youth organisations from neighbouring Balkan countries, which share differences in their post-conflict affairs and economic levels, but commonalities in ethno-diversity, multiculturalism and the need for inclusion of minorities. Another shared current issue the Partnership's communities are facing is the global phenomena of the COVID-19 outbreak which has brought more interaction with and through the digital world, but at the same time more dangers, due to the rapid and frequent spread of fake news. In combination with the social distancing and social alienation that took place globally, young people found themselves unprepared in the face of social exclusion, and isolation with only access to a constant flow of unfiltered information. In this way, young people's personal and social well-being has been and is undermined, enhancing polarisation, division of opinions and lack of critical understanding, issues that consist of a reinforcement to the geo-political issues that the Balkan countries are already facing. This Project aims to foster and promote the inclusion, tolerance, media literacy, soft skills and activation of young people in the Partner's Balkan communities by providing them with educational opportunities from trained youth workers, which are low threshold and participatory - virtual youth exchanges - attempting to reach the ones that are facing social obstacles to participate in such opportunities.

"Women economic empowerment is an essential asset to achieve gender equality. However, in most countries, worldwide men outnumber women in leadership positions in every sector globally, including business, non-profits, government, education, medicine, the military, and religion (Andrews, 2021). This gender gap, often referred to with the metaphor ""glass ceiling"", represents one of the most critical challenges to achieve gender equity and allow equitable working opportunities to all genders. Given the urgency of achieving gender equity, which encompasses promoting women leadership and including men in the process, the capacity-building project LEO - Leadership is for Everyone was created. The project aims to enhance women's leadership, develop NFE resources for youth workers and young people, promote men's involvement in women's empowerment, and strengthen the synergies between youth work and the labour market.This aim will be achieved through a wide range of single-sex and mixed activities (job-shadowing, internship programme, workshops, e-course, and more) for young women and men. More specifally, the project will:1. Identify young women's challenges in becoming leaders in partner countries and understand how to address them;2. Increase men's involvement in the process of women's empowermentand identify 20 positive masculinity figures to support the project andchallenge traditional sexist stereotypes in their communities;3. Improve the qualifications and competencies of 5 youth workersin each partner country by the end of the first year in order to better supportwomen's leadership: 4. Make it easier for 20 women from each partner country to enter thelabour force by August 2023;5. Provide a better understanding of young women's leadership to partner countries.The main outputs of the project will be the creation of research, methodology for youth workers, e-courses, and a sustainable internship programme for young women with fewer opportunities."