The project BADGES has aimed at valorising the huge lifelong learning potential of European cultural and natural heritage sites.Nowadays the concept of lifelong learning is strictly connected with the validation of non-formal and informal learning and the relevance of recognizing the entire scope of knowledge and experience held by an individual, irrespective of the learning context is widely remarked. Despite the growing interest and the European institutions’ strong commitment to promote validation systems in different learning situations, there are contexts, such as the heritage and cultural sites, where concrete experiences of competence validation are rather few and scattered.BADGES developed a fully fledged methodology to support both cultural and natural heritage sites in offering learning enhancement experiences to their visitors, and the opportunity to have the new knowledge and skills acquired during the learning experience recognised and validated.BADGES developed:•a methodological frame for competence based informal and non-formal learning in cultural and natural heritage•a CPD Programme for cultural and natural heritage staff capacity for developing and organizing validated informal and non-formal learning at their sites•a European system for issuing electronic badges as a certificate for competence development•and eventually created a community of interest around this topic and support the creation of a ‘badging culture’ as part of an approach to personal and professional development and to employabilityThe main target groups of the project are:-Professionals working in museums, other heritage or cultural organisations, natural parks, archaeological sites that will be able to issue the badges linked to their mission.-People visiting cultural sites, nature parks, historical sites, etc. that can be invited to make the most of the experience by getting a badge.The project started with a research on:•Good practices in European cultural and natural heritage sites•Heritage professionals’ needs in terms of educational methodologies•Successful examples of electronic badges usageThe results of this study laid the basis for setting up the core components of the BADGES methodology.An inventory of relevant competences was identified, relating to transferable social, personal and organisational competences (SPOC) that may be acquired in the specific learning contexts and also field competences connected to the cultural and natural heritage topics. The description of the competences followed the LEVEL5 validation system, a well proven methodology to validate social and personal competences acquired in informal and non-formal learning. For each competence, a framework will be set up along the dimensions of knowledge, skills and attitudes. A validation system was set up considering the stages: Identification, Assessment and Documentation of competences and their Certification with Badges.The Badges issuing system is based on an open learning space (the LEVEL5 learning suite) consisting of different OER components Mahara (e-Portfolio and Moodle as open source Learning Management System. The system is connected to the LEVEL5 software which issues certificates as qualified badges since it is build on a specific taxonomy.The BADGES approach creates a transferrable learning system that connects the competence framework with individual learning pathways in heritage contexts.All the components of the BADGES methodology were transferred to a group of recruited professionals working in the field of cultural and natural heritage that will be invited to attend a European short-term course. After the course the participants designed and offered a competence based learning pathway to the visitors of their heritage sites. Though this activity was not funded anymore the application of the BADGES methodology in real-life cases gave important feedbacks to fine tune the products developed.The project main outputs were wrapped up in the BADGES Toolkit which is freely available. In order to maximise the impact of the project the partners put in place a structured valorisation strategy which is based on the coupling with the REVEAL network to ensure the continuity of the activities, the exploitation of the BADGES products. The valorization strategy includes the mission of the BADGES community, descriptions of the products and services and the network strategy and organisation. This way the qualified badging system and the whole CPD approach shall be valorised for cultural and natural heritage institutions throughout Europe in promoting the learning experience among their visitors.During numerous national and European events the project was highly recognized by heritage professionals and was widely disseminated to the European Community of professionals working at cultural heritage sites and those stakeholders who consider cultural heritage education as an enrichment of their adult education.

At a time of diminishing resources, divided nations, Brexit, an increase in far right activity across Europe and fake news, there is a pressing need for young people to be able to think critically and act democratically. It is widely recognised that creativity and curiosity are vital skills for critical thinking, debate, campaigning and active citizenship. The arts allow people to express that which words cannot convey, and in doing so, they can find a human connection that transcends the superficial differences between them.‘Global Curiosity’ proposes a pan-European partnership designed to increase the amount of ‘global youth work’ happening in communities across Europe, and to increase the involvement of arts and cultural venues and creative practitioners in the delivery of global youth work. Our shared definition of ‘global youth work’ is: “an approach that enables youth practitioners and the young people they work with to discuss and understand global issues in the context of their youth setting. It aims to encourage a critical understanding of the links between personal, local and global issues. It seeks young people’s active participation in bringing about change towards greater equity and justice” https://think-global.org.uk/our-work/for-youth-workers/background/Global Curiosity is a strategic partnership that aims to generate more high-quality arts-based ‘global youth work’ across Europe. We want to engage more art and cultural organisations in youth work inspired by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, helping to achieve the aims of the EU DEAR programme. This is a form of global development education that we are describing as 'global youth work' and we want to provide the methodology for delivering this work through the arts. Global Curiosity will address three key dilemmas connecting three interdependent sectors across three European countries. The three dilemmas are: 1.Arts-based youth workers are delivering ‘global youth work’ - BUT they don’t always recognise it as such2.Global Development Education Centres are delivering youth work, sometimes arts-based - BUT many of them don’t know about art and cultural organisations 3.Community-based youth-workers sometimes use art, and sometimes explore global development education ('global youth work') - BUT they don’t have a methodology or arts expertise Acting as organising principles, these three dilemmas will galvanise and mobilise an exchange of practice between youth arts workers, youth and community workers and global or development education workers in Greece, Poland and the UK. The dual aim is to support youth workers from a range of sectors to create a shared methodology for both embedding quality arts and cultural practice into global youth work, and to embed established global youth work techniques into arts and cultural projects.Creativity and curiosity go hand in hand and we are passionate about the power of both to create a better society for young people. . . so our objectives are:1: to encourage Global Curiosity between sectors, inviting the question, 'how does your sector deliver or contribute to global youth work?’ 2: to encourage Global Curiosity between three European Countries, inviting the questions: ‘what does global youth work look like in your country?’ ‘how do you or could you use arts techniques to contribute to global youth work in your country?’3: to develop Global Curiosity in young people, inviting the question, ‘how can we support young people to replace assumption with curiosity and develop their citizenship, creativity and ‘critical thinking’ skills?’This exciting pan-European partnership will invite 24 youth and community workers from a variety of sectors to take part in three international visits and practice exchanges. They will: - experience the techniques of the UKs’ Development Education Centres'; share their own understanding of and approach to global youth work; - experience the range of ways in which arts practitioners in other countries are also delivering global youth work through drama, dance, music, film, art and digital. They will also take part in a diversity training programme and build ‘consensus’ on what makes inclusive practice and principles. Their Global Curiosity journey will lead them to a place where they are international practitioner-leaders able to confidently articulate a shared methodology for how to deliver arts-rich global youth work. They will then be supported to test out this agreed methodology across 9 action research projects in their own countries benefiting more than 300 young people who: face economic disadvantage; are from communities with high numbers of refugees; or are at greater risk of never having eye-opening international experiences. Our impact will be to create 24 'Specialist Leaders in Global Curiosity', sharing not only through their own professional networks, but internationally across Europe via a network of disseminators.

Youth Learning Through Arts is European cooperation project that delivers arts based methods for youth and youth workers. Project is a beginning of new European interaction with partner organisations and professionals of youth and cultural operators in participating countries as art educators and youth workers take part to three learning activities. In these learning activities for professionals, art educators and youth workers will work together with colleagues from other countries. They will learn from each other and create art methods for youth work together. They will test art methods and tools of their own art form to explore different relevant topics and improve their own tools with other art forms. Artistic educational programmes for young people are developed and youth workers are offered innovative programmes with creative predisposition for further development and initiatives. This way new interdisciplinary models of cultural and art education are pilot tested and presented in the project's intellectual outputs - arts based workshops for youth and Ebooklets for professionals.Need for this project is obvious: there are only few mobility programs for children’s or youth cultural operators in Europe and this project will show how much can be done with well planned and structured actions. National arts workshops are first delivered to a local youth group and then presented, discussed and made better/improved by a group of European arts educators participating to a learning activity. After the learning activity a local youth group in each participant country will experience a European art workshop created for them. Local youth groups are selected through the network of all participating organisations and all groups consist of young people who have already expressed their interest in being active, engaged with local, national and global issues and wish to gain more skills for preparing and presenting their own initiatives. Arts workshops are produced in a pedagogical manner and will be taught to the participating youth groups' youth workers so they can be used in the future. The main intellectual outputs of the project are three pedagogical Ebooklets, one created in each country and together forming one manual of art methods for youth work. Via these Ebooklets, other arts educators and youth workers can take up the methods presented. Ebooklets and video clips of the methods will be published on an open data and are free for everyone. Workshop results will be communicated in participating organisations communication channels and in project's European multiplyer event in Brussels. There, an open seminar will be conducted to stakeholders and members of European parliament. Results of the project will be discussed and distributed to decision makers in European capital.Along with the Ebooklets, all art workshops for youth will be documented and saved to participants' web portals, you tube channels and Arts At Home web page (harrastakotona.fi). Digitalisation is in key role in documentation of arts based methods, youth experiences and in dissemination of project’s results. Digitalisation makes the project sustainable as its results continue having an impact after it is over. The main objective of the project is to increase personnel's professional capacity in using arts methods in youth work and add skills and tools from different art forms to further develop their know-how. Our goal is also to raise awareness of creative sector as a tool to approaching different issues with youth. It is a two way street of learning: youth sector learns from cultural operators and cultural operators learn from working with youth sector.Professionals in want to learn best practices used in other countries. This project will raise the level of youth and youth culture in participating organisations and in their countries. Discussion between partners will be kept throughout the project via on-line meetings and in live meetings. Also, a discussion platform will be provided to participant youth groups. Project makes cross-sectoral cooperation visible. Partnerships involve the most appropriate and diverse range of partners and hence benefit others from different experiences, profiles and specific expertise. Cross-sectoral cooperation is an important tool in deepening the relationship between youth and cultural sectors in each country. Funding is not usually available for cooperation projects and post COVID-19 times cooperation between culture and youth sectors is vital in the well-being of youth. In many ways this project brings hope for the future.Target groups: youth workers, art educators, youth, personnel of the partner organisations, European stakeholders.