Inequalities in living conditions and health is a reality for many of the world's cities today. It is also the context of which the project Open the door for reading has emerged. The report, Closing the gap in a generation (WHO 2005), has resulted in strategies in many European cities, of which the partners cities Gothenburg, Bristol, Brussels, Milan and Turku are examples. The action plans undertaken by these cities address the general and specific challenges to enable better livelihood and equality for all. Support for social sustainability exists on all levels, for example the UN Agenda 2030, the European Pillar of Social Rights, the emphasis on social inclusion in the Erasmus+ program. Within this framework all five partner cities are committed towards implementing actions and/or policies to support a good start in life for all children. This ambition has been the common ground for the partnership and Gothenburg´s initiative “The city where we read to our children” has been a driving force for the project’s theme and content. Early language development and reading is perceived as a fundamental right of the child as it plays a vital role in a child's ability and motivation to learn during school years. Open the Door to Reading has been geared towards strengthening the support of children’s language and literacy development. The most important resource to encourage children’s language development are the parents. Focus has therefore been on developing supportive methods to strengthen parent’s ability to support their children. The partners have exchanged innovative practices as well as developed new tools within this field. The projects cross-sectoral structure involved professionals from pre-schools, library’s, child health care services and family Centres. The aim was to share and improve existing tools and methods and in partnership develop a training manual for professionals from different fields of expertise on how to reach children and their families. Transnational Partner Meetings (TPM) have been used to share and develop competence around reading promotion. Each partner has hosted a three-day TPM with a specific theme which included presentations of good practice, study visits and workshops. Workshops around the training manual were also implemented. The five TPMs enrolled 140 people participants (pre-school teachers, librarians, family centre staff, strategic planners in education, university teachers, adult education and teachers working with multilingual families). Two Multiplier Events have been held, in Brussels and in Milan which included representatives from different academic fields and professionals giving both an operative and a strategic perspective to reading promotion. The events reached in total over 250 people, far greater than anticipated in the project proposal. The Training Manual (TM) for professionals is a supportive guide and provides a selection of tools and methods professionals can use on a general basis as well as directed at specific targets groups. Over 190 professionals have taken part in the testing and local follow-up of the TM. The project has influenced the cities' in so many ways and has had an impact at both an operative and policy level. For example, Gothenburg´s programme has inspired Bristol’s new strategy ‘Bristol: A Reading City’ and Milan has implemented a group of Reading Ambassadors. The TPM in Brussels, presented kamishibai as a method to support language learning in early childhood education which generated great interest amongst the librarians from Turku who applied for national funding to implement the kamishibai in Turku. The cross-sectorial collaboration between professionals are the most prominent long-term benefit. Milan has for example introduced a strategic multi-stakeholder group, composed of the early childhood services area, library area and the Health Department. In Turku, the library sector has set up a new network between pre-schools, child welfare, NGOs, church, children culture planner, and director of early childhood education. The TM as an educational tool will also have long-term benefits within the cities. Supporting a continuation of reading promotion and the knowledge amongst professionals on the importance of early intervention and child literacy support. This is expected to have a long-term effect in the form of new co-designed approaches.The partner cities are now also better equipped to adapted reading promotion to meet the needs of children and parents. There is greater insight into steps needed to stimulate reading and literacy from a very early age and better understanding of the needs and challenges facing vulnerable families and their children. Hopefully, the knowledge and practices from this partnership, will lead to greater opportunities for young children, especially those children growing up in a non-literary environment. By supporting children’s learning conditions, we can contribute to the greater goal; social equality.

The European project "Lerend interculturaliseren" ("Interculturalisation by learning") was developed from a needs analysis in the 22 Brussels Flemish community centers ("gemeenschapscentra") and from the ambition to cooperate within the EU. This needs analysis focused on the theme interculturalisation. The ambition to cooperate in an EU context has been nourished by community center De Zeyp, which for years has an open look at Europe, and has been concretized by a working group of the Brussels community centers.The project aims to meet five needs of the analysis focused on interculturalisation :- Multilingual communication- Intercultural communication and interaction- The realization of bridging contacts / encounter between diverse communities- A diverse volunteer population- Dealing with racism.The Brussels community centers (a consortium of four centers and their supporting entity) want individual educational staff to learn abroad about these five topics. 10 pairs of educational staff, managing staff, communications staff or staff of the supporting entity will have the opportunity to gain experience for one week, mainly through job shadowing (participant observation) in a foreign organization or through a structured course. The selected destination countries are:- Finland and Luxembourg (multilingual communication)- Netherlands and France (intercultural communication)- France and the UK (bridging contacts between diverse communities)- Germany and the UK (a diverse volunteer population)- Iceland (structured course, dealing with racism).For each of four topics two destinations were selected. A pair of staff members is sent to every destination. For the topic "dealing with racism" two pairs of staff members are sent to a course (course twice organized next school year).The consortium constitutes a steering committee in charge of the project. Each community center from the consortium (each project partner) will be pointed one of the four topics. Along with the selected participants (selection on the basis of specific calls, based on job profile, motivation, the spread of participants across community centers , ... ) the project partners will determine suitable host organizations and make agreements with them. With the 20 participants learning agreements are concluded. Documentation and dissemination are important elements in these agreements.Participants gain experience abroad and are encouraged to self-reflection. The project partners of the consortium build a European network and are motivated to explore other themes in an EU context.Other organizations / educational practices in Europe come to know Brussels practices and community centers.The acquired skills and experience are visible in the strategic plans of the supporting entity and the community centers (operationalization of the policy on interculturalisation 2014-2019).

Objective: Building on two previous Erasmus+ KA3 projects (NEWTT and FIERST - see 4.2). NEST’s goal is to design, implement, evaluate and propose a system of new adaptive mentoring for novice teachers in disadvantaged schools. Policy measure tested: Mandatory adaptive mentoring will increase effectiveness of novice teachers working at disadvantaged schools, leading to better results with students, commitment and retention in the profession.Hypothesis: Across Europe, support for novice teachers is discretionary, frequently deprioritized and carried out on an ad-hoc basis. Schools serving a disadvantaged, low-income student population might struggle to allocate resources. Effective mentoring of novice teachers would save time, costs and encourage a larger number of schools to adopt it, thereby increasing effectiveness, job satisfaction, retention and attractiveness of the profession. Experimental method:- Research and gathering of best practices of strong mentoring programs- Design and implementation of the intervention, selection and training of mentors-Identification of novice teachers and control groups with the help of public partners of the project-Multi-arm research design to test various elements of the mentoring training with the counterfactual-Diagnostic, ongoing and final assessment of skills, mindsets and knowledge of mentors, novice teachers in intervention and control groupsTarget groups:--Novice teachers with less than 5 years of experience will benefit from the support and experience of more senior colleagues--Experienced teacher mentors will develop new skills in effective support, mentoring and leadership-School teams, districts, national educational authorities will benefit from novice teachers’ faster onboarding, increased levels of confidence, better results with students and retention--Students from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive support which addresses their particular needsExpected results: see details in pre-proposal.

The project was a cooperation between the Flemish Community Commission (VGC) in Brussels (Belgium), KEKS in Sweden and Idebate in the Netherlands (IDEA NL). We aim to learn more about non-formal activities that lead to empowerment and more active citizenship of all youngsters (from diverse background), and also about projects and/or experiences on attempts to improve diversity in formal participation structures. this concerns mostly youth councils, and also in non-formal participation through projects of the youth organisations themselves. An important target is that youth workers get to know more methods (by preference non-formal and bottom-up), suitable for a diverse and representative group of youngsters in a city, keeping a diversity of social and cultural background of the target group in mind. Through reflection and debating we want to find ways to increase the impact of young inhabitants in a city on local policy and discuss the elements that improve or limit participation in a youth organisation. A group of 17 Belgian and 5 Dutch participants travelled to Stockholm from the 28th of November untill the 2nd of December. In Stockholm 5 Swedish youth workers from KEKS memberorganisations joined us. Our partner organisation KEKS has its headoffice in Goteborg, and a large network of memberorganisations in Goteborg and also in Stockholm. In its network in Stockholm they planned several study visits to youth organisations and groups in the city who work on the topic, and also let us attend a seminar in a congres about youth work in the city of Stockholm. Here, we shared our Brussels experiences on non-formal methods of participation and empowerment. The participants from the Dutch organisation IDEA NL brought expertise on facilitating intercultural debates with youngsters, and particpated actively in the part of the program that concerned reflection and debating. Each day we reflected on the experiences we had that day, and together we looked for ways to implement the things we learned into our realities. The last day we debated with our entire group and also with a local youthcouncil, to experience the method of debating with youngsters and also challenge eachother to change our perspectives on our current work on this matter. The participants of this project were already aware of the importance of including youngsters of diverse backgrounds in their organisation, in as well formal and non-formal projects. Through this mobility they got inspired to implement new elements of non-formal participation, or put up new projects (some in cooperation) to support bottom-up projects by youngsters. These new ideas and new projects could lead to more active citizenship of youngsters, an important theme of the project.