Youth unemployment is one of the mayor problems Europe is facing, unemployment levels among young adults are very high. In 2016, more than 6,3 million young people (aged 15-24 years) were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs) in the EU. In most EU countries, youth unemployment rates doubles overall unemployment rates. The EC communication “Investing in Europe´s Youth” indicates that action is needed to provide: Better opportunities to access employment; Better opportunities through education and training and Better opportunities for solidarity, learning mobility and participation. YSM addresses all 3 areas. There is an Increased need for skills, competences and knowledge related to digitally enhanced design and manufacturing, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, design thinking and prototyping. These skills are highly demanded in the labour market and will become more relevant in the years to come. At the same time, the labour market demands versatile employees capable of working in teams and contribute to innovation. Co-creation, co-design and cooperation skills are pivotal thus for employability. All these skills are related to what is known as the “maker” culture, an environment in which different skills and competences come together, taking maximum advantage of digital tools, software and machinery to co-create, co-design and develop innovative products or services. Fablabs or living labs have been growing fast in the last years. Despite the fact that these entities can provide the connection with the demands of the labour market and with methods which are very well suited for young people, their users tend to be adults and collaboration with young people and the VET system is not developing at the same pace. YSM addresses these challenges by developing a coherent programme which reaches young people enrolled in the VET system, and provides them with the aforementioned skills and competences, through a cascaded approach in which they are reached through their teachers and schools. Integrating the programme into the school activities (either as curricular or extra-curricular activities) increase the reach of the programme, and the supervision and guidance of teachers ensures adequate take-up and acquisition of the envisaged skills and competences. A parallel development in society is the increased social awareness and consciousness at all levels of society (and especially among young people) about the social and environmental impact of their actions and decisions. In this line, there is growing social awareness for the challenges faced by those with special needs, e.g. with physical impairments, elderly, etc. Social inclusion and full integration of these groups in society is a focal point in European and national policies, especially in view of an ageing population. YSM acts at the cross roads the described challenges, by providing a programme which provides VET students with highly demanded skills and competences, allowing them to put these into practice developing a social object, artefact or prototype which contributes and alleviates the challenges faced by people with special needs in their every life. This can only be achieved with proper guidance and support and ensuring that the skills and competences are acquired properly. The programme can thus not exist without the involvement of teachers who need to transmit the knowledge and guide the learning process. As such YMS puts emphasis on their role. They will need to similar types of skills and competences as their students so as to be able to transfer this knowledge to them. Although specific teachers might have knowledge and skills on a particular component of the technical skills, e.g. 3D printing, they need a more comprehensive and wider set of skills to be able to implement the programme with their students. YOUNG SOCIAL MAKERS lays the foundations for a learning programme in the field of education for students in VET, and give them the knowledge, skills and competences to ideate, design and prototype social objects which cover the needs of people with special needs, using digitally enhanced manufacturing tools and machinery, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, rapid prototyping and design thinking. At the same time they will acquire, through working together on the social objects, co-creation, co-design and co-operation skills (horizontal skills in high demand by the labour market).

"According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU) at the start of 2019, 101.1 million people in the EU had reached the age of 65 – 20% of the total population. By 2050, this share is projected to increase to 29%. The ageing is mainly due to a long-term fall in fertility rates and increased life expectancy. The needs of these people have changed over the years. There are significant differences between the seniors at present and in previous years. Together with the global phenomenon of ageing of societies (decreasing birth rate and prolonging life expectancy), increased migration of population, growing number of breakdowns of unions, lack of offspring, etc., a growing number of environments in which seniors run single-person households are observed, especially for Deaf senior. The ""Deaf Senior Education for Active Living"" project aims to : - PROMOTE ERASMUS + AMONG ALL CITIZENS AND GENERATIONS BY OFFERING ACTIVITIES OF EDUCATION AND EXCHANGES OF EXPERIENCES TO SENIORS.The project was designed to meet the growing demand for support for deaf elderly people, with particular reference to their access to the information and actions required by the digital world, first of all, the financial, banking and social security operations that today require increasing digital skills. Deaf people, especially older ones, are often forgotten by public services and cannot access most routes for people of their age because of the communication difficulties they may encounter and the absence of interpreting services, for example in CPIAs or UNITRE (in Italy), but also on mainstream occasions, such as conferences in a library or a guided tour of a museum. There are significant differences between the elderly of today and those of the past, the current ones are in fact active, attentive to their physical appearance and the environment, follow the needs of fashion, engage in various activities promoting health, physical and mental. They require a high-quality training offer, taking into account both the range of issues suitable for their needs and the possibility of being involved in various activities with a function of socialisation and active employment of leisure.Thanks to this active lifestyle, the current senior enhances his time and consciously selects the activities in which he participates, paying attention to the quality, attractiveness, and usefulness of the offer in everyday life. Increasingly, older citizens are showing an interest in broadening their knowledge of the latest technological developments (ICT) to be active in the digital world; they want to pursue passions/interests that, for various reasons (lack of time, over-responsibility), could not afford at an earlier stage of their lives. However, this process of selection and free choice is in fact prevented for deaf elderly people, who struggle to find the right information on training courses and even when they find them, they are faced with activities that are not accessible to them and lack adequate support. Since current elders are a group with specific individual needs, with different professional, family, social, educational, health and cognitive experiences (such as memory, attention, etc.), and that this significantly affects the educational opportunities of each person, the methods and forms of education used should be universal enough to meet the needs of a diverse group and at the same time individually adapted to the specific needs and abilities of the individual. For this reason, the consortium of this project wants to implement its training offer, enhancing the sector related to the education of senior people. - EXTENDING AND DEVELOPING THE COMPETENCIES OF EDUCATORS AND OTHER PERSONNEL WHO SUPPORT ADULT LEARNERS.Few adult educators/ trainers have been trained in the specific needs of older students and those with a formation in working with elderly people with disabilities. At the same, training materials are frequently designed to appeal to a younger audience and are not only not relevant but may be rejected as such by discerning seniors. Moreover, intergenerational training requires different methods and adaptation of existing materials and techniques especially when the target group are senior with disabilities (D/deaf Senior).- SOCIAL INCLUSION: According to Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we must recognize the equal right of all people with disabilities to live in the community, with the same freedom of choice as other people, and take measures effective and appropriate in order to facilitate the full enjoyment by people with disabilities of this right and full inclusion and participation within the community, so the project wants to improve social inclusion for older generations of deaf people through their stay active through learning, volunteering and contributing to the well-being of society."

The purpose of this project is to introduce a newly element into the existing framework of refugee integration into EU communities. One that offers a simple alternative to the ‘squandering’ of human capital, alongside a mechanism that recognises not only the importance of reclaiming dignity and identity for refugees, but for members of the host community itself.The project aspires to make migrant integration into EU communities a more efficient and less stressful process for the individual migrants and the recipient communities. The use of dignity diaries will encourage empathy with the ‘local’ hosts whilst our health, sport and employability models will provide the integration tools.Taking such an approach will ensure intercultural understanding and active citizenship by the host and the migrant is achieved harmoniously. Creating social integration will ensure any migrant issues are dealt with removing grievance etc. that will reduce any drive towards and prevent violent radicalisation whilst promoting democratic values, fundamental rights. The Youth crisis facing the European Union presents numerous socio-economic and political challenges for all member states, and calls for innovative models that deliver resources and practical solutions for diverse target audiences (new arrivals, political asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, etc.). The transnational nature of the migration problem calls for a transnational, multilingual and multi facets solution paradigm that is flexible, proactive and scalable. The Le Menach Foundation Consortium (LMFC) has been constructed to leverage the respective strengths and reach of partners to mobilise coherent solutions built on dignity, health and enterprise and employability to deliver an integration solution. The model is titled ‘Refugee Integration through Dignity, Health and Employability’ (RITDHE), to represent the nature of the model. ‘It isn’t just a question of human rights though – there is something even more fundamental at Issue…a concept that ultimately provides the foundation for human rights: human dignity’. The Dignity Diaries is a platform for filmed interviews with individuals whose lives have been touched by the role that dignity and honour, and shame and guilt, have played, or still play, in their lives. The Diaries were launched at the United Nations in 2014, as part of a campaign calling to redefine what dignity and honour really mean, and originally created to look at the role that dignity and honour plays in the perpetuation of poverty for women and girls. Initially created as a platform for the purpose of men speaking out to other men, the Dignity Diaries expanded to include other groups, as the narratives turned into teaching tools and interviewees acted as mirrors to one another. This created pathways into sensitive issues that could be openly expressed in safety, and without being confronted by the other, providing a framework for further exploration.LMF proposes the creation of a Dignity Diary platform to aid Refugee integration and link to the employability4europe.com digital employability model. This project will build capacity to replicate and expand the RITDHE model across the EU, and build language and localization application.

Our project, which we started as Etwinning, has been transformed into an Erasmus + project. Our project involves the creation of multimedia content images of cultural heritage such as fairy tales reflecting their national sign languages and cultures of the countries participating in the project. First it is planned to educate the educaters and then will be transferred to the students with the workshops and the products will be revealed with the activities of the students.In this project, it is aimed to increase the language and communication skills of deaf individuals, and to ensure the dissemination of different language and culture products by using information and communication technologies.Other aims: To enable the educators who work with deaf young people to develop themselves in order to guide the deaf individuals by enabling them to change their good practices. Creating opportunities to the disadvantaged disabled to make progress in European citizenship by helping them to recognize and introduce their culture with the help of educators. The aim of this course is to enable the deaf individuals to use information and communication technologies to learn different cultures and become cultural ambassadors. It supports multilingualism and diversity by using the national sign language, spoken language and foreign language. The aim of this course is to provide the educaters to recognize the knowledge of the deaf culture and the differences in national sign languages in its own place.The project is a project with 5 partners. The participating countries are, Turkey (coordinator), Italy, Macedonia, Greece, Serbia. Four participants from each participating country will participate in the project. These trainers will be identified as the event manager, somebody for technical work, the translator and the sign language translator. In our project, 10 deaf local students aged 14-20 will be ready to participate the work in the country where we are going to work. Activities will consist of; presentations, workshops with students, video shoots and trips. These activities will be shared with the prepared website on social networks. Each hearing-impaired student will work with two participants in workshops in mobility. In this way, the social interaction of individuals with different languages and cultures will be provided to work in an equal environment. In these studies, images created by the text in the mind of the student will be depicted or designed in three dimensions. These visuals will be converted into a background then they will be converted into the sign language and will be recorded as a video.There will be subtitles in the video that is spoken by a teacher. So there will be a work that appeals to many senses. With these studies, students will be able to work on their reading comprehension skills with the help of their teachers.They will also be involved in the artistic work by drawing, drawing, making a three-dimensional text or animating a text they read. The process of realization of the products produced is as important as the product. The students will thus be able to absorb their national heritage and provide permanent learning. It also supports the purpose of creating texts, making use of information and communication technologies, and creating open educational resources by turning the texts into sign languages. In the text to be studied, integration, repetition, meaningful usage principles and direct and indirect vocabulary teaching strategies will be used. Thus, by providing the expansion of the vocabularies, reading and listening comprehension levels will be contributed.With this project, it will be ensured that deaf individuals will exchange culture with distance education, by using information and communication resources. It will be ensured that they will learn different cultures not only by their own sign language but also the sign language and flexible learning methods of different nations, other than the education and training curriculum. As a result of the activities, disadvantaged individuals will be provided cultural exchange.At the end of the project, hearing-impaired individuals will have the opportunity to know the cultural values of different countries with their own languages through the website and social networks created. This will be of benefit to all hearing-impaired individuals who know these languages. With the help of these products, it is predicted that deaf individuals will have a significant increase in their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. The website to be created for the project will be an open source for people with hearing disabilities in all age groups around the world. After completion of the project, similar videos of institutions in other voluntary countries that will want to contribute to the web page will be uploaded to the website. In this way, the cultural exchange between all deaf individuals at the international level can be strengthened.

We are living in a highly digitalized, interconnected society, where the immediacy of human interaction make us feel very close to each other. However reflective activity is seldom practiced.We understand that communication, in the wider meaning of the word, is an inherently essential need for humanity. This is what drives us to embark on a reflective exercise on some frequently ignored forms of communication: unconventional languages.First of all, and based on a preliminary needs analysis, we determined what issues are relevant to our project and what are the priorities to be address: social inclusion, learning for life, civic engagement, deprived communities, etc. Given these considerations, our concern about communities in danger of social exclusion, this will be a social project.Our objectives set the pattern of actions and approaches to complete our project: research, student’s direct involvement, and dissemination of results and activities undertaken.We expect to achieve both tangible and intangible results:•Tangible: consolidated report, documents, blog entries, multimedia files, etc.•Intangible: enhancing our awareness and or further knowledge of different cultures,Greater feeling of belonging to an European common culture, opening new horizons, etcIn order to meet these objectives and achieve the desired outcomes, great care will be need in ensuring the of tasks required for the completion of the project are fairly shared among the partner organisations. These activities will be adaptative to the changing circumstances and determined at different intervals as the project unfolds.These will include specific activities for each institution, virtual meeting, transnational coordination meetings, and mobility activities with students. These will be carried out in each of the partner organisations, and designed by the host institution:•Turin: Sign language, braille and malossi•Prague: Computing and digital language•Navalcarnero: Visual language•Pireo: Emotions and art language•London: Sound and musicA risk assessment was performed to determine and minimise possible drawbacks.This included criteria for the selection of the partner organisations, share of responsibilities, budget and the decision to select a Eramus+ KA204 – Strategic Partnership/exchange of good practice in Adult Learning project.We will work towards the creation of a collaborative atmosphere among our team, developing team building activities.Our assessment will focus on 4 aspects: specific activities at each organisation, transnational meeting, mobility activities and final global assessment.Thorough work on the design and assessment of each activity will help us achieve the desired impact, which we expect to be in 5 layers: participants, organizations, students, locally and regionally, national and global.We will identify items that provide a quantitave assessment (web interactions, blogs or social media, number of participating students, materials created, feedback questionaires, etc) and qualitative (media exposure, impact, external links, etc).In order to ensure sustainability, all our activities will be widely shared via the Erasmus+ Difusion Plan.We expect a smooth development of our project, carrying out successfully our planned activities, achieving our set objectives and disseminating our outcomes with the wider European community.Finally, provided we can complete the project according to plan, many of the materials and activities shared will remain for further use and/or further development, thus meeting the sustainability requirement, integral in all major European projects.