"<< Objectives >>Project ""Mind-Body-Spirit: Unlocking Youth Potential"" aims to provide a space where youth workers from different countries can come together and explore and practice alternative learning methods that promote holistic development of young individuals, especially those with fewer opportunities. The focus of the training will be on alternative learning methods that emphasize the body, mind, and spirituality, such as Mindfulness Meditation, Creative Arts, Adventure-Based Learning, Service Learning, Yoga, Gamification, Nature-Based Learning and Mind Mapping.The training program will provide a safe and supportive environment where youth workers can learn and practice these methods. The program will include workshops, seminars, and interactive sessions designed to help youth workers gain new insights and skills in working with young people. This project will increase the competences of youth workers in working with young people, especially those with fewer opportunities. The training will be designed to promote the development of non-formal education methods, including active and participatory learning, experiential learning, and intercultural learning.Objectives:1. Provide a space for youth workers to learn and explore alternative learning methods with emphasis on the body, mind, and spirituality, that promote holistic development of young individuals especially those with fewer opportunities.2. Explore youth workers personal well-being, and experience how these alternative methods can be used for self-development and healing.3. Provide tools, resources, and practices to enable youth workers to implement these alternative learning methods in their work with young people.4. Foster cross-cultural learning and understanding among youth workers, and provide opportunities for them to share their experiences and best practices.5. Improve the quality and inclusivity of youth work in participating countries by promoting alternative learning methods that can be adapted to the needs of young people with fewer opportunities.6. To promote the Erasmus+ program and encourage youth workers to participate in future projects that can contribute to their personal and professional development.These objectives are aimed at improving the quality of youth work, promoting inclusive and holistic learning methods, and providing opportunities for cross-cultural learning and sharing of best practices. Ultimately, the project aims to enhance the skills and future opportunities of young people with fewer opportunities, and promote the Erasmus+ program as a valuable tool for personal and professional development.<< Implementation >>The project ""Unlocking Youth"" is an 7-day in-person training that will happen in Tukums, Latvia from 2/09/2023 - 8/09/2023 (excluding 2 travel days) and it will gather people who work with young people especially those with fewer opportunities with preferentia; age 18-45 years. In total it will gather 27 participants ( 4 participants from partner countries: Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Lithuania, and 7 participants from hosting country Latvia). This project is aimed at providing youth workers with alternative learning methods that promote the holistic development of young people, especially those with fewer opportunities. The training program will take place in a safe and supportive environment where participants can learn and practice these methods. The program will include workshops, seminars, and interactive sessions designed to help youth workers gain new insights and skills in working with young people. The working methods will be non-formal education methods, such as group work, role play, experiential learning, and reflection, aimed at fostering an inclusive, participatory, and learner-centered environment. The aims of each session will vary, but the overall goal is to provide youth workers with the tools, resources, and practices to implement these alternative learning methods in their work with young people, and improve the quality and inclusivity of youth work in participating countries. The sessions will also promote cross-cultural learning and understanding among youth workers, and provide opportunities for them to share their experiences and best practices.<< Results >>Firstly, the project will have a significant impact on the holistic development of young individuals, especially those with fewer opportunities. Youth workers will learn and explore alternative learning methods that promote the body, mind, and spirituality. These methods will enable them to provide better support to young people in their personal growth and development.- The project also focuses on youth workers' personal well-being, allowing them to experience the alternative learning methods for self-development and healing. This experience can improve the youth workers' well-being, making them more effective in their work and personal lives.- Youth workers will be provided with tools, resources, and practices to enable them to implement the alternative learning methods in their work with young people. This capacity building will lead to the promotion of inclusive and holistic learning methods, making youth work more effective in promoting young people's personal growth and development.- The promotion of alternative learning methods that can be adapted to the needs of young people with fewer opportunities will improve the quality and inclusivity of youth work. Youth workers will be equipped with the necessary tools to support young people's growth and development, regardless of their backgrounds.Finally, the project aims to promote the Erasmus+ program and encourage youth workers to participate in future projects that can contribute to their personal and professional development. This promotion will lead to an increased uptake of the program, benefiting youth workers, young people, and the wider community."

The extremists’ movements challenge the world every day spreading nationalism, xenophobia, violence, discrimination, social conflict. There is no single way to combat against them, as each has its own ideology, theology and historical background. As we could see in recent developments in Eastern Europe, the extremists became to play also important role in reshaping the political environment.The seminar “The Extreme Side of Europe” will gather 30 youth leaders, activists, youth workers from Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova to discuss and find out ways to prevent this developing phenomenon and develop ways to combat it. The main objectives of the project are:Understanding the causes of extremism and where it develops, Map the extremism phenomena in Europe and find connection between them,Find out specific relation of extremism and economic crisis,Find and analyse the main actors of generation of extremism and the ones that can prevent it,Analysing the European values and how they can be used in contrasting the extremism phenomenas,Overview of European programs and creation of new projects related to the topic.The seminar will be conducted with the means of non-formal education, including team building activities, role plays, simulations, discussions, meeting with guest speakers, team work, etc. It aims to raise the awareness on the discussed issue in the society. The participants of the project are considered multiplier of its results by sharing the knowledge and skills they obtained during the seminar with the members of their local communities, as well as develop a follow up Erasmus+ project in future.

The aim of the project UPENSKILLS is to identify and define essential soft skills for entrepreneurship in order to produce of a set of tools to be used as training materials in entrepreneurship related courses and programmes for cultivating entrepreneurial mindset of young people. The project will address the education needs of young people during their progression from high school students to young entrepreneurs.The Project will consist of two main parts: identification and definition of essential skills for entrepreneurship, and production of a set of “training sheets” on entrepreneurship skills and competencies to be used as training materials in entrepreneurship related courses and programmes.In order to contribute to the solution of the youth employment problems, the project UPENSKILLS will facilitate the entry of young people to the labor market, encourage youth actively engage in entrepreneurship, through implementation the following objectives: - promoting entrepreneurship education in European Union and in partner countries; fostering recognition of entrepreneurship education and reinforcing a discussion about entrepreneurship competence training, - making entrepreneurship education a basic feature in education systems;- sharing of ideas, knowledge, experience, and best practices among countries, stakeholders, and practitioners;- developing innovative instruments of non-formal education to contribute to development of entrepreneurial competences of young people; Main activities and project tasks:- to identify and define key competences and skills to be and entrepreneur;- to create a portrait of the successful entrepreneur;- to identify similarities and differences in the participant countries/regions; - to collect best cases/good practices on entrepreneurship training in non-formal education and produce portfolio of Good Practices;- to produce of a flexible and adaptable set of methods (method cards) for entrepreneurship trainers based on previous soft skills demand identification to be added as a part of a course or as a programme itself; - to conduct international training course for youth workers to equip them with competences to work with the developed toolkit;- to carry out pilot testing of new toolkit for young people at national level in all partner countries;- to organise three multiplier events and disseminate results.

The last years brought a topic on the public agenda that is a concern for youth work all over Europe. The radicalisation of young people is on the rise, on all levels of the spectrum - left, right or religious. Youth Work therefore plays an important role as the radicalisation of many young people could be successfully prevented if youth work would better know the different mechanisms and motivations behind the different forms of extremism. In order to successfully prevent the radicalisation of young people youth workers need to get to know the different steps, codes and motivation for the process the young person is going through.
During our TC for Youth workers have tackled the following agenda: - Study Visits to prevention programs in the Bremen area
- Terror comes with many faces - Exploring Europe’s history with terrorism
- Current forms of radicalization, special focus on Islamism and right-wing extremism - Religious and Racial theories for extremism
- Youth Workers Role
- Skill-set for recognizing tendencies in young people and how to address them The Trainings Course has been implemented nearby Bremen in November 2018.

Most of youth organisations rely since their creation on the contribution of volunteers. Although recent developments in the field of NGO’s have increased professions and professionalism in this area of work, volunteers remain the basis of a lot of projects and initiatives in various areas of the society. Nevertheless, rarely any of those organisations has approached volunteers and their work systematically, and with knowledge and practice of volunteer management. This has resulted in burnout of many volunteers, dissatisfaction and loss of belief in the values of the volunteerism among some volunteers. Voluntary work on itself is in constant evolution and the last years have brought in new challenges for organisations to attract and moreover to keep volunteers involved in the activities on short and long-term basis. In addition to such “regular” problems with volunteer management, the volunteers working with specific groups of beneficiaries with fewer opportunities (like refugees; persons with special needs, etc.) are more likely to experience exhaustion and burnout, because the work with such population is stressful and demands huge emotional involvement of volunteers and thus burnouts are more likely to happen. All the organisations involved in the project were organisations that base their work on volunteers’ engagement, exchange and local volunteer service. We have noticed that lately quite a few volunteers got burnout and felt overwhelmed. Thus, this project now. The main aim of this training course was to develop youth workers’ / participants’ competences in sustainable and holistic work (management, supervising and mentoring) with volunteers that are engaged within our activities with marginalised groups, thus improving volunteering for inclusion at local and national levels in the countries involved. Objectives: - Exchange realities and practices from different countries on insights and perceptions about youth work and volunteering programmes with marginalised groups - Motivate participants to and empower them for active promotion of combating social exclusion in their projects - To provide opportunity to improve skills and knowledge on step-by-step development and implementing of the volunteering programmes for inclusion within our organisations - To empower participants to act as effective volunteer managers, supervisors and mentors of the volunteers working with marginalised groups, and for the benefit of youngsters our beneficiaries and the local communities - Introducing the E+-YiA, its connection with volunteering in general and the possibilities it can offer through different projects to our volunteers / beneficiaries - Developing new projects and future European level cooperation among partners with the aim to raise quality of volunteers’ satisfaction and progress, volunteer programmes and volunteer management in our organisations. The core activity of the project was – 8 days long TC. It was organised in Selce, from 10th till 18th October 2017. Project gathered 25 participants, trainers and staff from 8 organisations and countries (HR, MK, SK, CZ, PL, TR, IT, GR). Project involved 11 out of 25 people with fewer opportunities. The training course was based on the approach and principles of non-formal education and was designed as an open learning process based on participants’ experience and exchange. A combination of different creative, participatory and interactive methods was used and designed upon the profile of participants.All partners will be involved in preparation, implementation and evaluation and follow-up phase and activities during the project, while the preparation team of trainers, facilitators and staff will be comprised of experienced youth trainers and youth workers from applicant and partners from Croatia and FYR Macedonia, expect partners from Bulgaria, who were preparing participants, but unfortunately they canceled. As a result of this training course youth workers acquired more practical as well as theoretical tools and skills to better involve volunteers in their activities. They learned and improved their skills in teamwork, management of staff and volunteers, assessing needs and capacities, development, evaluation and follow-up processes. Also youth workers developed new projects for involving volunteers and young people in their activities. As a result of the project on local level, more unemployed and other youth were involved in local activities of our partners. In longer term, this will result with increase of quality programmes and activities with marginalised groups and better inclusion and acceptance in society, on local and European level.