<< Objectives >>Il progetto ̋QUALITY BOOST: Designed for Youth workers ̋ è nato nell'ambito dell'animazione socioeducativa e delle organizzazioni europee senza scopo di lucro in cui si vuole sviluppare un approccio multidimensionale al ruolo di facilitatore/formatore, secondo le esigenze espresse per questo tipo di professionisti. L'idea era che facilitatori e formatori avessero un ruolo fondamentale, con competenze specifiche per rendere di successo qualsiasi progetto giovanile che intendono facilitare.Ciò ha incluso competenze specifiche, un'attenta preparazione della logistica in un progetto o un workshop, la comprensione delle dinamiche di gruppo e le esigenze di qualsiasi gruppo, la gestione di team di giovani, la gestione di team internazionali e la possibilità di creare uno spazio per la crescita e l'apprendimento personale e professionale .L'obiettivo di questo progetto era trasmettere queste conoscenze e migliorare le competenze degli operatori giovanili di 12 paesi. Abbiamo dato l'opportunità agli operatori giovanili di muovere i primi passi per diventare facilitatori, migliorare il riconoscimento dell'istruzione non formale e la qualità dei progetti giovanili. Tutto ciò è stato ottenuto attraverso l'utilizzo di metodi di educazione non formale e di apprendimento esperienziale, supportati e guidati da formatori esperti.<< Implementation >>Il progetto ̋QUALITY BOOST: Designed for Youth worker” è stato implementato in tre fasi.1.Preparazione: questa è avvenuta in tutti i paesi partner ed è stata la fase di scelta e preparazione dei partecipanti. Questa fase è avvenuta da agosto 2021 fino alla settimana in cui si sono svolte le attività di questo progetto.2. Attuazione: 27 operatori giovanili si sono incontrati a Messina (Italia) per 6 giorni di formazione tra il 10 e il 15 novembre 2021. Questa è stata la fase di apprendimento per i partecipanti e le organizzazioni coinvolte. Questa parte è stata implementata con modalità non formali, coinvolgendo i partecipanti nell'esperienza, fornendo loro uno spazio sufficiente per esercitarsi immediatamente e valutarne lo sviluppo.3. Follow-up/disseminazione: ciò è avvenuto dopo l'attività. In questa fase, i partecipanti hanno creato risultati tangibili e concreti dal loro apprendimento e li hanno condivisi con le loro organizzazioni e gruppi target attraverso workshop nei rispettivi paesi.<< Results >>Dopo questo progetto i loro partecipanti sono diventati in grado di organizzare e facilitare workshop, progetti per i giovani e corsi di formazione sia nel programma ERASMUS+ che in qualsiasi altro, essendo dotati di competenze, abilità e metodi necessari per trasferire i valori fondamentali comuni dell'Europa, contribuendo a creare progetti sostenibili e di qualità sistemi di sostegno ai giovani e riconoscimento dell'istruzione non formale, essendo ugualmente un valido supporto nel loro lavoro con i giovani nella comunità e a livello internazionale.Inoltre, un risultato tangibile è la cassetta degli attrezzi e i video tutorial creati all'interno del progetto. In questo modo abbiamo raggiunto le persone oltre la partnership della formazione e abbiamo creato un impatto maggiore.

<< Objectives >>Let's do it better is a project which comes up in a framework where we intend to exploit to the maximum efficiency the program Erasmus+. Thus, the main objective is to teach young workers in 5 main fields so they can improve significantly in those fields and also develop their professional skills. These fields are: environment and susteinable development of an Erasmus+ project, recording and creation of audiovisual content, improvement of non-formal education methods, use of digital tools applied to the documentation management and the development and usage of a website. Also, other transversal and secondary goals are defined: establishing intercultural bonds, improvement of the skills in a foreign language (English), specially speaking / listening skills, promoting Erasmus+ programme or the creation of professional links and enhance cooperation between european organisations.<< Activities >>Do it better is the only activity of this project and involves 17 participants from Estonia, Poland, Armenia, Spain and Finland, who will be youth workers, youth social entrepreneurs or potential youth workers. In addition to this feature, their profile will respond to gender equality, they will have to have an interest in the subject and be at least 18 years old. The project involves people with fewer opportunities: participants from Bulgaria and Armenia will come from isolated rural regions (where the partners from these countries are based) and from the other countries at least one participant will come from an economically disadvantaged situation. The main activity is the mobility of workers in the youth field, to be carried out in October 2020. It consists of three phases. PRE-TRAINING COURSE. During this stage the preparation of the project will be carried out through online meetings with the coordination and other partners and face-to-face meetings of the participants with the representatives of the sending partner. The participants will be chosen through interviews and using a series of well-defined criteria. TRAINING COURSE. This is the main part of the project and will use non-formal methodologies (interactive talks, debates, research, project work) to develop the skills of the participants in the five areas indicated. Participants will produce the Youth Worker's Handbook, which will summarize some of the most relevant guidelines in each of the 5 areas of work. POST-TRAINING COURSE. It will be developed during the months following the Training Course. In it, we have to emphasize the follow-up that will be made of the projects that the participants carry out in their respective fields of work through the Rubric (a document that we have prepared), so that reports can be made to analyze the implementation of the learned knowledge. It is also worth mentioning the dissemination of the Youth Worker's Handbook during the project by the participants and the elaboration of the EVALUATION REPORT by the project's coordinating association during the days prior to the end of the project.<< Impact >>Regarding results, the creation of the Youth Worker Manual is the main result, altogether with the application of the learnt methods by the participants in their own projects. Impact will be mainly on a European and local basis; it is expected that the impact will focus on the community of youth workers which is the main aim of the dissemination accions. In the long term, we must outline the benefits linked to the professional improvement of the workers, which will be related with more quality and utility projects. Thus, we can consider Erasmus+ also one beneficiary of the impact of the project.

Asociatia Bodvaj in partnership with 4 youth organizations implemented the project “Guardians of Values”, a short EVS, which was organized in countryside, in a small village, Batanii Mici, Romania. Our partners in this short EVS were: Yeghvard youth ecological NGO (Armenia), Continuous Action (Estonia), Fekete Sereg Ifjusagi Egyesulet (Hungary) and Autonomia e Descoberta CRL (Portugal). Asociatia Bodvaj and all of the partners have a quite strong, reliable partnership. The organisations cooperate between them for years and are driving forces behind the Ruckenwind Strategy. Only the Armenian organization isn`t part of this strategy, but with them we had 2 collaborations in the past years, regarding the inclusion of youngsters with fewer opportunities. This project was already planned in a seminar. Project partners have brought in this project there experience in the field of non-formal learning methods, prepared youngsters before departure, took part in the evaluation process and organized dissemination activities after the project activities have ended. The themes of our project were access for disadvantaged, rural development and urbanization and Early School Leaving/combating failure in education. The objectives of the project “Guardians of Values” were:1. to reabilitate the traditional museum, tha popular bath and the playground by EVS volunteers and local volunteers, thus improving the level of key competences and attitude for 16 young people with fewer opportunities during the 2 ST EVS activities;2. to stimulate 16 unemployed/NEET young people`s participation in the Erasmus+ Programme and to give possibility for 16 young people with fewer opportunities (educational, economical and social difficulties) to be integrated;3. to strengthen the relations and create a strategic partnership for 5 years between 5 organizations from Europe - Romania, Armenia, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal – in the field of youth work and volunteering: sharing methods of preparation of the volunteers, evaluation methods, dissemination of good practices and results.Number of participants: we wanted to host 2 times 8-8 volunteers for short term EVS (2 volunteer / 4 partners / flow). In every flow the 4 partners should have sent 2 volunteers/partner, but in the second flow our partners could send to us only 5 volunteers instead of 8, thus the total number of EVS volnteers were 13. Profile of participants: in the selection phase our partner were seeking for participants who are open-minded and interested in open-minded, interested in and ready to live in the Romanian culture and countryside and are willing to work with our local volunteer group, they would the Romanian, and also like to do physically work. This project has been specially designed and created solely for the purpose of giving some young people with backgrounds of very restricted opportunity the chance to do something completely different from anything they have tried before in a completely different cultural context. We didn`t asked for any studies, certificate, special experience from the candidates because we didn`t want to limitate participation of youngsters with fewer opportunities. The core idea of Ruckenwind Strategy is not to ask for any special skills required. The will and the commitment of the volunteer is important. Our project was as inclusive as possible. 10 participants were youngsters with fewer opportunities in this project.Main activities of the project:Flow 1.) 'Traditonal museum'October 2017: The first group was hosted in October 2017 and their task was to renovate the walls of the traditional museum in Batanii Mici, with a special method, used in the old times, the luting method. The first flow was organized between 04-28.10.2018 according to the activity time-table planned at application stage.Flow 2.) 'Popular bath and playground'July 2018: The second group renovated the popular bath of the village (repairing benches, tables, the pools, informational panels) and repainted the playground items. The second flow should have been organized in April 2018, but due to problems with the selection of participants we asked the NA to approve the extension of the project period with 2 months and organization of the mobilities in July. Thus we organized the second flow between 04-28. July 2018. Impact of the project: The volunteers have learnt new skills and competences in the task areas outlined in the work during the programme. These competences are: ‘learning to learn’; social competences; sense of initiative; communication; task related competences. We hope that after their mobility period abroad they can look for job and build their career with more chance. In addition they have learnt how to communicate across cultures and work together in a cohesive multicultural team. They get a better awareness of European projects and EU values. At the end of the project the whole village can use the outcome of the volunteers` hard work.

"<< Objectives >>The aim of the “LET´S MAKE A STORY” project is to increase the skills of youth leaders through the acquisition of effective, informal, and ""youth-friendly"" techniques and methodologies and create a facilitated discussion spree between participating youth workers to share information, data, best practices and knowledge about concepts and principles of youth participation and how to inspire and empower young people to become active at the local, regional and international levels With this aim, we are planning through this LTTC to equip the youth workers with creative methods, tools and instruments, which will help to encourage young people to take initiatives in their local communities and influence on things by using this widely used methods of comic making and storytelling. This will lead to increases in youth participation level and show the youth that their voices can be heard and they are an extremely important part of society. UNICEF has adopted the rights-based approach to children and young people, viewing participation as a human right and an end itself. Participation matters for its own sake, regardless of measurable or demonstrated benefits for various groups or purposes. Additionally, participation is recognized by UNICEF as integral to the democratic ethos and to building a civil societyThis project will consist of two training courses and a local stage between them. The first TC will explore the methodology of storytelling and the second one creation of comics During the “homework” stage, the participants will need to organize the workshop for target groups they work with and present the information about the project and storytelling We have chosen the art of comics and storytelling because it's popular, creative, and contemporary and because it's able to relate the imaginary (desires and aspirations) and tell the present (reality made of diversity), thus stimulating young people to reflect and to communicate their needs, visions, and potentials. Youngsters, and people in general, are greatly attracted by the powers of a good story. By understanding these methods better and exploring how they can use them in youth work, the participants of the LTTC will be able to address and connect with their target group much better, being also able to develop activities that are more successful and can ensure a lasting impact on their territories. Moreover, this approach can be used as offline as online, which is extremely relevant to our “new reality” After the LTTC, the youth workers will be able to work with their target group, using methods of storytelling and comics as “face-to-face” activities as online ones By the end of the project, participants will create their comics, which will be presented at the exhibition and then published and share on social media to raise awareness about the importance of youth participation and promote the results of the project.<< Implementation >>The LTTC is consists of three parts – TCs and homework (local stage).Both of TCs will take place in Ivancice, the Czech Republic and will include 7 working days and two travel days. The first TC will be a 7-day training course, aimed to increase the competences of youth workers in using storytelling as a tool to reach, motivate and inspire young people. The activity will address the need for further professional development of the youth workers and enhancement of the communication between young people and youth workers. It will offer storytelling as a way to overcome personal barriers and become storytellers.The second activity will be seven days training course, which is a continuation of the first part, but it will be focused on exploring the topic of comics as an effective and creative tool of youth work and a way to involve and activate young people at risk of social exclusion or segregation in the initiatives and training activities dedicated to them. After the first TC, participants will have the “Homework” stage, during which they will need to organize the workshop for target groups they work with and present the information about the project and storytelling itself Together with the participants of the workshop, they will need to create a story or stories addressing some social issues, using the competencies, which they had gained during the Activity 1 The story can be presented in different formats (written, video, photos and etc.) This story (s) the participants will bring to the Activity 2In each TC will participate, 28 youth leaders, youth workers dealing with young people, staff from NGOs, and educators from 12 countries ((The Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Greece, Latvia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy, and Hungary). We expect that the same participants will take part in all the activities. In some extraordinary cases (for example family or health issues), the substitute of participants in the activities could be made.<< Results >>The main learning outcomes of this project are developed competencies of youth workers in using storytelling and comics as a tool of youth work, especially with young people, who are coming from less privileged conditions and/or from contexts of social exclusion (immigrants, ethnic minorities, economical and geographical disadvantage) in order to empower the social, cultural and economic development of them. The main desired impact of the project is raising awareness on how to use these tools in education and youth work especially working with the topics of inclusion, participation, and human rights, to improve human rights education and development of competencies of an educator multiplication of the number of youth-led initiatives.Participation in this activity will have a direct impact on participants’ daily work with young people, as such mobility will develop youth workers’ competencies and influence the work they do. 1.Development of their knowledge skills and attitudes in storytelling and creation of comics will result in a more engaging learning process, which will allow the target groups to learn about important social issues in an interactive, enjoyable, and participative manner 2.It’ll impact on more qualitative approach towards young people from different minority groups, as participants will have the skills in creating comics in order to address issues of social inclusion, intercultural dialogue, human rights, etc. 3.It’ll impact the quality of work in partner organizations, as they will be able to use products created during the LTTC in their everyday practice.4.Youth workers themselves, by participating in this international LTTC, will develop their intercultural competence, as this experience will contribute to breaking stereotypes through direct contact and reconsidering personal patterns of thinking and behavior, which is extremely valuable for youth workers personal development. 5.Learning from good practices in partner organizations will inspire youth workers to initiate new projects for youth locally/ nationally and internationally 6.Another impact after this LTTC will be a better quality of educational activities organized by youth workers 7.After this intense LTTC period youth workers themselves will develop their competencies, get inspired and motivated for further work, as one of the strongest motivations for work comes from learning something new, exchange of experience with colleagues as well as creating new contacts space for which we are going to provide with this LTTC.The main desired impact of the project at the regional, national, European, and/or international levels is raising awareness on how to use storytelling and comics in youth work especially working with the topics of inclusion, participation, and human rights, getting indirect influence on the policy-making of government investments (on a European level) to improve human rights education and development of competences of a youth worker, multiplication of the number of youth-led initiatives. The expected impact of the outcomes on local communities from partner countries are: Increased quality, accessibility, and diversity of local/regional/ national, and international initiatives -Follow up projects that will be planned during the last day of the second activity -Sustainable international network of youth workers and trainers, dealing on the same issues and using visual thinking tools. -New projects based on storytelling or on creating comics as tools for youth work made also for young people with special needs, to apply under Erasmus + Programme in cooperation with promoters of this and other similar projects; -Usage of storytelling and comics for promoting human rights and inclusion, developing skills and attitudes that can be used for benefit of local communities, and will develop better communication and visibility;-Increased awareness of the different actions and opportunities of the Erasmus + Programme among youngsters and their communities.The project will have “tangible results” in the form of:-exhibition on the last day of Activity 2. In this exhibition, the participants will be presented with the comics, which they will create during the training course. The local community will be invited to attend the exhibition-the handbook “Let´s make a story”, which will be uploaded at SALTO toolbox"

<< Objectives >>Overall aim of the project was to train youth workers, youth leaders on being able to raise awareness and develop attitudes in connection with cultural diversity, intercultural learning, preventing radicalisation of young people, to develop understanding and skills towards using non formal methods within youth work activities in local, regional and international level. To focus on mainly respecting cultural diversity and cross community cooperation in all over Europe and even more widen area. Cultural diversities are within lifestyles, traditions, histories, gender, education, minorities as traditional, sexual and new minorities, refugees, migrants, etc. of young people. To build a multiply network among EU countries with youth leaders and youth workers who establish and implement youth projects emphasis on cultural diversity in local and regional level and to cooperate together in international level. Learning objectives of the training course were:- To enable youth workers and young people for recognising prejudgements, prejudices among nationalities inside and outside different countries;- To identify and define different and similar aspects of different cultures and stereotypes related with them; - To identify and define the roots and origins of prejudices;- To develop critical way of thinking;- To accept and tolerant cultural diversity;- To make youth workers capable for motivating young people being active participants in a process of acceptance and respectful cultural diversity;- To prepare, run and evaluate local, regional and international youth projects by young people for accept and tolerance cultural diversity inside and outside different countries and fighting against hate speech and hate crime;- To build cooperation among youth workers among EU countries. Learning objectives of the evaluation seminar were:During implementation of projects and activities some problems and conflicts might come up within youth groups. Getting to know conflict resolutions and other solutions in order to handle them with positive pedagogical approaches; To improve knowledge on understanding of cultural diversity concept and develop new ideas in order to put the concept into practice;To raise awareness on prejudices, stereotypes, xenophobia, racism as special aspects of cultural diversity and to share experiences in order to fight against hate speech and radicalisation of young people through youth work activities locally and European level;To develop competencies of multipliers of cultural diversity; To strengthen the cooperation of multipliers of cultural diversity;To build a strong multipliers network among EU countries. We host 37 – 37 participants who work with young people who come from unprivileged living conditions; rather from ethnical (Roma) origin, refuges, rural youth, disabled young people.<< Implementation >>We apply for “Building Cultural Bridges” was a long-term training course, which is starting in June 2020 and will end in February 2023. It had three phases:Phase I: Training course in Antalya, Turkey, 21 – 30 April 2022. It focused to establish the fundamental base for common long term cooperation among partners; to develop competences of participants with special focus on attitude and knowledge, to make twinning as support system between participants for practice phase in order to strengthen partnership building, to set up the e-support through E-learning platform, to initiate the local youth campaigns and activities and European youth projects. Phase II: Practice period May – October 2022 with the activities were made by participants on fighting against radicalisation of young people and celebrate cultural diversity and support each others in an E-learning process. It focused on twin support between participants, build a network among partners, publish the NFL methodology of the local campaigns and youth activities. In the end of the practice period, local researches were run in order to assess the impact of the TC and make suggestions for improvement in the seminar. Phase III: Seminar in Berlin, Germany, 10 – 17 November 2022. It focused on define the roles and tasks of culturally diverse multipliers, improving mostly skills of participants: solving problems which were impossible to make through E-learning support, finalise the Culturally diverse booklet from the E-learning platform and blogs of participants, to create the sustainability of the project’s results.<< Results >>Phase I: members of local community of Antalya such as Syrian family wife and husband, a representative from the House of Minorities, local inhabitants of Antalya in the streets, refugees centre, disabled house, school students, shoppers, visitors in the town hall of Antalya, local youth organisations having special target groups: the interaction with our participants gave them an opportunity to get to know colleagues from abroad, build up European partnership, exchange and explore different issues they all face with, they learnt more about possibilities offered by Erasmus+ programme. This was a mutual learning process for different inhabitants of Antalya who were in different situation and having different ages and backgrounds. Phase II: local impact was done in the local communities of each partner organisation through local youth activities/campaigns: as 37 participants with their colleagues of behalf of partners and associated partners worked together with for and by young people in order to promote cultural diversity and prevention of radicalisation of young people. At least 20 local youth actions (campaign, activity, workshop, event, etc.) were implemented during half a year. Their target groups were young people in general and young people with fewer opportunities such as Roma, refuges, rural youth, disabled, unemployed young people or mix of all of these. Impact was done on young people, youth workers, youth leaders, teachers, students, inhabitants of the local communities in general and particularly different target groups that were defined during Phase I. Local governments were involved into the practice phase within each communities of the consortium as asking permission for local campaigns, visiting to schools and social institutions e.g. refugee centres. Phase III: seminar: members of the local community of Berlin, Germany such as Youth NGOs working with refugees/migrants, refugees and migrants themselves, youth NGOs, schools, libraries, social institutions, youth councils, etc, who had participated in the practice phase, inhabitants in general, local youth organisations who haven’t been involved into the project yet but can be interested in, etc.European impact:The E-learning platform was open for other colleagues and youth workers, youth leaders and stakeholders e.g. members of local council, teachers, educators, psychologist, etc. who are directly work with culturally diverse groups of young people within their working context and wanted to follow and learn the non-formal methodology of our local campaigns, youth projects and European youth projects as youth exchanges and training activities that all objectives, results and methodological descriptions were promoted there. Our E-Manual can be reached through social platforms and SALTO TOOLS. Briefly the stakeholders we reached during the whole long term project:youth organisations;young people in general;underprivileged young people such as , refuges, rural youth, disabled, unemployed young people or mix of all of these;associated partners such as youth clubs, schools, libraries, refugee centres, social institutions, youth councils, etc. local governments;youth workers, youth leaders, teachers, social workers, psychologists, librarians, local decision-makers;local media such as newspapers, radio, local television in Berlin and Antalya, and local communities of partners see in the Eform the examples;Online media as webpages, facebook, instagramm, blogs, etc. run and used by participants and young people; etc. Visibility of the project and Erasmus+ programme were ensured through all of these face to face and online interactions. The logos of NA and Erasmus+ programme were used on each material we made and published e.g. E-manual, T-shirts for participants in the field activities. Erasmus+ programme were visible during all local youth activities run during Phase II by logos, and short presentation of the objectives of this project.