<< Objectives >>Writing Erasmus + KA1 projects has always been a complicated step for many of the youth workers we have met in our projects. The problems started from the moment when they considered writing the project as a separate step without taking into account the needs of the community, of the organizations, of the compatibility of a well-founded partnership. From the beginning, together with our partners, we analyzed the situation in our organizations. Both the usefulness of Erasmus opportunities for each partner and the skills of youth workers in writing and implementing such actions were taken into consideration. The aim of “Dreamers & Doers – how to write a project” was to improve youth workers' competences in writing quality (based on real needs, coherent, with clear methodology) international projects.The objectives of the project were:1. During the 12 months of the project, the 24 youth workers will improve their skills in writing quality projects (based on real needs, with SMART objectives, with a complex preparation & management plan, with non-formal activities, coherent impact, creative dissemination plan) and will participate in the writing process of minimum one project.2. By the end of the project, the 24 participants will be able to apply a minimum of 3 non-formal education methods of identifying the needs of the youth they work with.3. During the project, the 24 youth workers will work in teams created during the mobility, and they will apply with minimum 5 international projects in 2021.4. By taking part in all activities, during the 12 months of the project, the 24 youth workers will develop a more proactive attitude in addressing the needs of the youth they work with and they will feel more confident in their ability to produce change with the help of EU projects. We established methods for evaluating/quantifying each objective- evaluation part.<< Implementation >>The previous experience in organizing the projects with our partners was useful to arrange all the logistical and practical aspects, without encountering difficulties and to carry out the project as we set out from the very beginning. The mobility was organized mainly with the support of partners and all participants who were also involved in all phases of the project.Based on past experiences, we have shared responsibilities between partners since the registration phase. Each partner chose the tasks they wanted to do and appointed a person for each team to communicate and verify the progress of the task.The venue for the training course was Chant d’Oiseau hostel, a place easy to reach from both airports of Brussels, about 40 minutes away from Brussels city center. EDIW had already carried out successfully activities in this place.The venue has 9 conference rooms and agreed to rent us a 100 square m. room equipped with flipchart and video projector. The place was an exceptionally good place for our training and all the participants appreciated it. Participants were accommodated in rooms of 2 with all the utilities.Three meals a day, plus coffee breaks were provided to participants. We took into consideration people with allergies, and usual eating habits (Vegan, Vegetarian etc.). This info was collected during the preparatory phase and was sent to the accommodation venue in advance.The participants were youth workers and volunteers in youth associations from Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Romania and Belgium. The participants should have had a motivation in developing further youth projects especially within Erasmus+ program. Their previous experience in other E+ projects was important, but it was not a mandatory criteria. Each of the organizations selected their own participants.In preparation the participants took part in an induction course lasting 2 hours and was given on a 2 Saturdays with an attendance of about 22 people some were those attending the course. From the selection period, the participants were familiarized with the idea of needs analysis as a first step in identifying training needs. The approach in the project was one in which the participants experienced different methods of identifying their own needs in order to understand the dynamics and importance of these steps. A next step was to implement such methods in the community to develop these skills.Then, once they got home, the participants implemented local activities based on the use of these methods.Much of the project time was spent on practical experience answering the questions in the application form. In order to do this, participants identified real needs, formulated problem trees, identified appropriate activities, clearly defined the main objectives, and finally put all this information together and wrote a KA1 project. The process was very dynamic, the participants working in teams, discussing and having the opportunity to ask questions and clarify all the issues that created problems for them.The participants understood how a project is born, the steps to be followed but especially when they themselves managed to complete the process of writing a project by following all the necessary steps.Proof of this attitude could be seen during the dissemination period in which the teams worked to finalize the projects in order to be able to apply by the deadline of October 2022.Enthusiasm and motivation have been present all along and we look forward to seeing new project writing plans in the partnerships formed in our project.All participants will carry out activities in their own countries and their own communities in order to disseminate de results of this project. They will make presentations about Erasmus+ program, about nonformal education methods and more concrete in each country there will be an Erasmus+ project applied. The participants developed and elaborated 4 projects based on the 4 main priorities of Erasmus+ program, thus their cooperation will continue much longer.<< Results >>First, we address the results as improved competences for the participants from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania, France and Belgium. It is important to know what new or improved knowledge were acquired during the project, what new or improved skills were taken and what new or improved attitudes were tackled. The participants in “Dreamers & Doers” training course, acquired new or improved knowledge related to:- the needs of young people- the needs of disadvantaged young people- communicating with young people who have difficulties- inclusion at European level- understanding the characteristics of different disadvantaged groups- writing of Erasmus + KA1 projects- the opportunities offered by Erasmus +- SMART goals- Non-formal education- the problem and solution tree- the role of National Agencies- the importance of the Youthpass certificate- the 8 key competencies- participating countries and culturesThe participants in “Dreamers & Doers” training course, acquired new or improved skills regarding:- writing Erasmus + projects for young people- promoting Erasmus + projects- assessing and analyzing the needs of young people- how to respond and how to deal correctly with the needs of young people- communicating with disadvantaged young people- how to implement activities and sessions and how to manage disadvantaged youth groups- implementation of non-formal methods- implementation of international projects, especially within Erasmus + KA1- observance of deadlines and time management- work in the international team- expressing and presenting ideas in a logical and clear way- creating the problem tree and the solution tree- creating a logical program, following a red thread, in the elaboration of the mobility program- application of Erasmus + projects on the specific platform- creating an informal groupThe participants in “Dreamers & Doers” training course, acquired new or improved attitudes:- youth workers have a greater will and desire to write and implement Erasmus + projects, due to both increased self-esteem and self-esteem, as well as the motivation to bring something extra to their own communities- participants became more inclusive, more empathetic, more understanding toward disadvantaged groups- significantly increased the willingness of youth workers to help young people in their communities- an increase in proactive attitude- the participants feel more European- participants are more open to continuous learning and to develop both personally and professionally- increased self-confidence of the participants- they are more motivated to use and implement non-formal methods- increasing motivation and creativity in working with young peopleConcretely, using these competences, the participants elaborated 4 project ideas and draft projects that will be applied in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Romania as a way to continue their cooperation in Erasmus+ program and as a way to tackle new topics and to address new needs in youth personal and professional development.

Formation of Teachers for Emerging Challenged Areas in the Philippines (FORTH) addresses the reality of teaching in socio-economic deprived areas with very specific needs and contexts for both children and teachers. FORTH particularly addresses teacher´s loss of motivation and self-esteem ending in absenteeism and attrition. It addresses this challenge with a number of joint measures such as bringing to the forefront the relevance of this mission for the eradication of poverty through education, highlighting the importance of this task creating new curricula and developing it into a Master and then into an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree while making it accessible to a) people already in the area (part time) and b) those who make it a choice and a vocation to go to these areas. The curricula will be designed jointly by specialists from Phil and EU, having a critical mass 10 per university fully trained (total 50 people) and making it a centre of excellence by research and international links.Other measures relate to a plan for BA students, willing to take their practical year in these marginal areas, learning and taking part in the project. Further, the project will foster the creation of University clusters, learning communities of university- school teachers (in the selected areas as a pilot) enjoy join learning activities related to exploit specific methodologies existing for these type of teaching and use and build new material relevant to the children´s in these areas to learn and create self-esteem, sense of value and conviction that they can make it. Web repositories and audiovisual material will be created jointly the Master students and the teachers in the area.FORTH intends to be a pilot in the Philippines to be replicated in other parts of the world, making a network of interested partners. FORTH counts on a privilege team both in Phil and in EU and particularly it counts on the presence and support of the Ministry of Education of the Philippines.

In December 2012 a group of EDIW Youth carried out an analysis of social needs in Oviedo, Spain. Four were selected as top priorities: youth unemployment came top in their analysis. The second was high rates of school dropout felt as a decisive point for the future. They also identified lack of social commitment of youth and decided to act upon it, starting a project. Finally, they considered a critical moment for Europe and focalised the need of integration of migrants. In over two years, several steps were taken by the group. This project: “Roots and Wings” (R&W) addresses these four needs in a small, concrete and pilot form. The social commitment of youth is the articulating backbone. It is from this perspective that they look at the other three and search for answers.This attempt is backed by 2 Universities, one Intergovernmental Southeast Asian Centre, a Foundation, a European Association and an NGO incorporating the beginning of a SME. The countries involved are Belgium, Italy and Spain where the three social challenges are strongly felt: The three with high numbers of migrants, particularly in recent years, with very high percentages of school dropouts and of unemployment, particularly in the southern countries.The social commitment of the youth has begun with their group analysis of the situation and is followed by three lines of engagement. Besides analyzing unemployment and trying to develop the most required competences most of them were involved the integration of migrant families and youth or in the reinforcement of school children. A group of the latter, were involved in a youth workers mobility for two months in the Philippines, where they had the chance to experience a school for two hundred street children- a consolidated project, an emerging project to avoid dropouts from public schools in three run - down areas of Manila. This action had a very strong impact on the people on mobility and everyone around.This project works through circles: the 6 people who took part in the mobility were part of a group of youth workers trained in a number of competences through two intensive experiential training sessions to help in their social commitment and in their employability. This group was made of 32 youth workers two per each of the 16 groups in Europe and 2 in The Philippines, who followed the course, around 160 young people.They used a system of three steps: analysis of the problems, followed by project development and ending in political dialogue.They were encouraged by new methodologies developing and showing a significant level of success in the integration back in the class of children with difficulty. This was particularly evident with the maths one of the highest causes for failure and consequently of dropout.The project intended to improve the competences of the youth workers in intercultural communication and cultural understanding and in collaborative leadership as well as enhancing the lines of work they had selected.The project was a big success, the sessions were vibrant and full of participation and learning. They often conducted the collective workshops and worked in groups with a high level of participation and sharing. There were a large number of visits to Embassies, NGOs, IGOs and public bodies in their group research and debate.The use of the non-formal learning was a high novelty which was very welcomed in deed by them. It liked well with the experiential nature of the methodology used. At the end of each of the experiences (also in the country experiences carried out by the youth leaders), a certificate and a Youthpass were given as a documentation of the competences acquired. On the second Seminar, there was an intense session of the topic and a serious reflection on learning ending with the Youthpass.

"InterAct is a project to promote and validate the development of Intercultural Action Competences (IAC) for participants in international youth projects. It spans the entire length of international projects, including the initial project design, web tools to practice and deepen the learning result and digital group work to integrate the learning into the daily life. To react to the Corona pandemy, InterAct will also include virtual encounters such virtual volunteering or online workcamps.What is IAC?IAC is the competence to adeptly navigate complex environments marked by a growing diversity of people, cultures and lifestyles, in other terms, abilities to perform “effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself ” (Fantini & Tirmizi, 2006). According to the UN universal declaration on cultural diversity (2001), intercultural competences complement human rights as a catalyst for promoting a culture of peaceful and harmonious coexistence. In that sense, they play an important role in achieving the goals of international youth work both on a global and European level. The competences that will be acquired not only contribute to the successful cooperation in international youth work, but also contribute to the role of intercultural dialogue as a positive narrative (report 2015/2139(INI)) as necessary facilitator for the integration of third country migrants. ""There is a real urgency – in many aspects of our lives – for education, which can help citizens live together in our diverse societies. For this reason we all need to develop intercultural competence. The ability to understand each other across all types of cultural barriers is a fundamental prerequisite for making our diverse democratic societies work."" (https://book.coe.int/en/root/4943-intercultural-competence-for-all-preparation-for-living-in-a-heterogeneous-world-pestalozzi-series-n2.html)What is InterAct?InterAct is a very ambitious project that will develop a complete collection of tools organised around a web based app, that offers an approach to IAC, that is both well researched and fun to use. It will allow• the young participant to dive deeper into the world of interculturality, to monitor, practice and validate their own learning progress (IO1),• the youth worker to easily integrate practical exercises, games and reflective elements into the creation of international projects, such as Erasmus mobilities (IO2),• include a policy paper to be used by decision makers to help promote and support funding of IAC and mobility projects (IO3)Why InterAct?InterAct makes intercultural action competence (IAC)• Understandable, • Measurable and• Validable.The main goal of InterAct is to transform the concept of IAC from theory to practice, to make it easily understandable for youth workers and participants alike and to make it fun to work with. ""In multicultural societies one of the central aspects of education for democratic citizenship with its emphasis on “learning and living together democratically” must be education for intercultural competence if our vision of sustainable democratic societies is to come true."" (Josef Huber, CoE 2012). The A in IAC stands for the attitudinal and behavioural component of the learning process and is crucial for the practical relevance of intercultural experiences in societies. It'sOn an individual level, it will increase the effect of mobillity participation on perceived self-efficacy, employability, self-esteem and openness to diversity. The combination of the encounter with our learning tool will deepen the learning effect on the cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral dimension.On a societal level, the dissemination of IAC will lead to an improved level of international cooperation, which is a key element for the future of the European Union and the Sustainable Development Goals. It makes our society more resilient against xenophobia and chauvinism and increases our capacity to integrate migrants.Who will use InterAct?IAC is a key competence that is required for and practiced in every international youth encounter. It contributes largely to the Competence in Cultural Awareness, but also to many other key competences. Although IAC is central to youth mobility, it is often not sufficiently understood, and learning progress in this field cognition-focussed andnot properly evaluated and recognized. Gender mainstreamingInterAct is a project that promotes equal opportunities for all. In the context of IAC, gender issues are particularly important as they help to understand, analyse and deconstruct genderrelated cultural stereotypes, that frequently get in the way of intercultural mobilities with participants of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. As InterAct starts with amodule to integrate IAC in the project development, it will make sure that these aspects are part of the project design from the very beginning."

Developing All Round Education (DARE+) is an innovative Project in the context of the European Higher Education Area and student-centred competence based learning. The project has brought together a prestigious and complementary group of partners, including leading world expects in the fields covered. The Consortium included seven universities (Trinity College Dublin, University of Deusto, University of Granada, University of Groningen, University of Padova and Uppsala University), an international non-profit association (Education for an interdependent World, EDiW) and the Coimbra Group of Universities.During two years (2014-2016) the DARE+ partnership has evaluated how university students could improve the DARE+ generic competences (ie. Teamwork, Leadership, Project Development and Management, Social Entrepreneurship, Communication, Intercultural Competence and Conflict Transformation) through the combination of formal learning with structured competence acquisition experiences outside the classroom. As stated in the project proposal document, the DARE+ project sought to “rethink in terms of opportunities of developing generic competences – various activities and initiatives that university students can get involved in during their free time.” The identification and analysis of the aspects of the generic competences which can be developed in non-formal and informal environments would lead to a better recognition and further development of learning in non-formal and informal contexts, as well as raising awareness about the development of the above-mentioned competences in such contexts both among students and educators.The main activities undertaken by DARE+ can be summarised in the production of intellectual outputs, the design and implementation of mobility and local activities and the dissemination of results through the DARE+ multiplier event. Along with the DARE+ publication, intended to be a reference tool for students to develop any or all the generic competences, the DARE+ project designed and developed a rubric for assessing each of the competences (DARE+ Rubric), a series of materials for dissemination purposes, a methodological and pedagogical model for the design and implementation of Intensive Summer Programmes, an evaluation system in relation to levels of competences (DARE+ Portfolio) and a strategy for the adaptation of methodology for recognition of prior learning (DARE+ Recommendations). Regarding the mobility and local activities, they have served as the testing ground for a sample segment of the targeted audiences of the project: students and trainers. Two Summer Intensive Programmes and three Train the Trainer Workshops were carried out focusing on each targeted audiences, respectively. Finally, the DARE+ multiplier event allowed for presenting the results of the project as well as raising interest in the assessment and accreditation systems developed, which, ideally, will lead to an impact at a regional and national level.The implementation of DARE+ has resulted in the design of innovative materials, piloted in real-life learning situations which constituted rich learning experiences to students and tutors involved directly in the project. The impact of DARE+ includes the establishment of a close-knit international network of partners committed not only to facilitating and recognising non-formal and informal learning, but also to highlighting the importance of the acquisition of generic competences. Additionally, DARE+ has led to the publication of materials in open format, which will remain available even when the project is formally over, as well as recommendations to universities, networks, associations and authorities at all levels regarding the need to advance in the recognition of the learning taking place in non-formal and informal environments.The partnership of DARE+ believes that the project has made a significant contribution, setting the basis and developing the tools to further work on the evaluation, assessment and recognition of generic competences in non-formal and informal contexts. Along with the materials designed, tested and made available by the consortium, DARE+ has engaged in the incorporation of the assessment and learning tools, and in the recognition of the above-mentioned competences in non-formal and informal environment. In this sense, policy recommendations have been designed in order to support decision-making at a national and local level.