"At present, European linear production, consumption and disposal patterns seem to support the myth that we live in a world with infinite resources. We are now aware that we are living on an ecological deficit with the rest of the world, importing almost 4 times more materials than we have exported. As the European Sustainable Development Strategy points out, a change in paradigm is necessary. The change needs to go beyond the current goal of EU waste policy of becoming a Recycling Society; it needs to embrace the reduction of material and energy use in order to turn it into a Zero Waste Society. One of the main focus areas of the ""Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials Challenge"" in Horizon 2020 is waste. There is a Europe wide plea that the waste generated in one industry becomes a secondary raw material for another industry.This transition will generate growth and jobs, while contributing to environmental protection and reducing Europe's dependency on raw material imports. As educators, we believe that the younger generation need to be fully embracing this concept in order to preserve our raw materials and - ultimately - our planet. Our objective is to develop materials for use in primary, secondary and upper secondary schools following extensive and detailed teacher training. The teaching materials will be a valuable resource to aid schools around Europe to learn to reuse, repurpose, reduce and recycle waste items where possible and sell them on in the marketplace. This will require entrepreneurship skills, marketing skills, repairing and manufacturing basic skills. The materials will be supported by a series of short films created for and designed by experts, teachers and the wider community. These films will be used as part of the resources developed during the life of this project. Materials prepared as part of this exciting project will be available throughout to widen participation in all regions. The project needs to work within different countries in order to find a cross reference and collective European approach. We are all both victims and perpetrators of the mounting waste problem we have in Europe. We seek, thorugh this project, to reframe our attitudes to waste products, by looking at where we can reuse items, repair them or redesign them and make something else."

<< Objectives >>In recent years, the importance and the role of playing in everyday life are being redefined: research has found evidence that play at work is linked with less fatigue, boredom, stress, and burnout in individual workers. Giving youngsters occasions to learn through play not only fosters creative thinking, problem solving, independence, and perseverance, but also addresses teenagers’ developmental needs for greater independence and ownership in their learning, opportunities for physical activity and creative expression, and the ability to demonstrate competence. When youngsters are allowed to make choices relevant to their interests, direct their own learning, engage their imaginations, experiment with adult roles,and play physically, research shows that students become more motivated and interested, and they enjoy more positive learning experiences.Social games have proven to be an effective tool to stimulate learning and create moments of deep reflection and understanding on a personal level. A well-designed and well facilitated game can leave an everlasting mark and change attitudes and behaviors.With this in mind, the project aims to equip youth workers and youth leaders with tools, frameworks and space to create and implement educational social games workshops that address social issues and can be applied in their environments.Our main objective is to teach the method of social games to youth workers. Acquiring new pedagogical competences will enable them to:- Diversify their field of action by learning about social games approach, project management and animation techniques- Raise the attractiveness and quality of their programs- Provide them with an innovative and flexible method that closely respond to the needs of individuals and address the needs of the youngster with fewer opportunities.Social games as a form of non-formal education are an ideal way to teach personal and social skills to young people as it is appealing and fun for everybody. Our project aim at introducing youth workers and youngsters to positive, healthy activities that encourages co-operation, strengthen confidence, develop communication skills, compassion and empathy toward others. The effect of playing social games is much more than just having fun, it is a process that can profoundly transform one’s vision of themselves and interaction with others and direct people towards a constructive and positive way of life.Having qualified staff is a crucial issue for youth organization and our partners allocate many resources on training their volunteers. Unfortunately, these same resources are diverted from educational program for the youngsters themselves.For this reason, we want to provide our partners with an opportunity to educate their staff, give them tools to reach different target groups and provide them with skills immediately applicable. We want to help them implement new educational program including social games within their own organization, thus improving their quality and reach.It is the duty of each youth organization to improve the quality and consistency of non-formal education. Being able to collaborate and create network of associations in order to share good practices is the key to do that. This is why we want to involve many different countries in our project, so that partners build their social capital and develop new projects. We believe that these projects are a key to more efficient youth work, and therefore a key to improving youngsters’ lifestyle,promoting the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds, empowering young people and enhancing theiractive citizenship across the European Union.In accordance with the general objectives of Erasmus+ program and the specific objectives of KA1, our project addresses the issues of:-Youth work quality and improvement. We want to provide pedagogical improvement for youth workers and their respective organizations and more recognition of youth work in general.-Active participation in society. We want to address directly or indirectly issues such as social skills improvement for target groups, health and well-being of young people, young people’s active participation, promotion of mutual solidarity and young people’s creativity.-European cooperation and awareness.<< Implementation >>We plan to implement one training course in Brežice, Slovenia between the 24.10.2022 and the 31.10.2022 including 28 participants from 11 countries. During the training course will cover the topics of game-based learning and use of educational social games.Before the training course start, we plan preparatory activities for the participants:- Fill in a self-assessment questioner describing their experience as youth workers, their wish and needs as well as their possible participation to the activities.- Prepare a presentation of their sending organization.- Prepare a funny/innovative presentation of their own country for the intercultural evening.- Prepare social games to present and lead for the other participants during the mobility.During the training course, our pedagogical work is based on practical workshops, theoretical presentation and group reflection. At the end of our mobility all the participants will receive practical experiences on educational games, reflect on these experiences and the methodology used, conceptualize the learning for their professional work and make a plan for applying their newly developed competencies.The training program is designed to have 4 working sessions of 90 minutes and 45 minutes of reflection (personal and group) on a full training day. Evening activities are also offered to the participants. Space for reflection will be provided during the training course program with facilitated reflection groups. As mentioned in the daily timetable, participants will be offered numerous opportunities to reflect on the learning experience and to assess it. Also the team will be holding mid-term and final evaluation to see the progress and the overall rate of the flow and the training course as a whole. The training course will be facilitated by two experienced trainers who have experience with civil education, game-based learning and youth work.After the training course, we plan to implement follow-up and dissemination activities. The participants will:- Organize workshops for their colleagues and act as multipliers in their local, regional and national communities.- Prepare workshops for their target groups.- Create follow up projects or take part in other Erasmus + projects.- Write articles about the project and its results and post it on various online platformsProfile of participants: The training course’s target group consists of youth workers, youth leaders, youth trainers and educators, youth work/ educational science students that work with young people in their daily work life or frequent voluntary activities, especially with hard to reach young people and those representing minority groups. Participants are interested in discovering educational social games as a tool of youth work. Participants have a good level of verbal and written English and are available for the whole project time (preparation, main activity, material development,dissemination, evaluation). They have a pre-existing knowledge of non-formal learning and youth related topics.<< Results >>ParticipantsThe participants will gain new skills and methods which will improve their quality of youth work. Improving their pedagogical skills will make them more efficient in reaching their target groups, propose better quality activities and prevent youth participation decrease. This will increase their motivation and satisfaction for their daily work. Gaining new competences will also make them more competitive on the labor market.Participants will develop their personal competences and this will influence positively their personal development and strengthen their involvement as considerate and active citizens in society. They will improve their key competences:communication in foreign languages, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, learning to learn, social and civic competences and cultural awareness and expression.Participants will create a manual on social games which they will be able to use in their daily work. The manual will be also broadly distributed among partner organizations network.The participants taking part in a mobility project learn about its value and potential for self-development. After the project,many continue to be active within the frame of Erasmus + as participant in other training course, as European solidarity corps or as youth leader in youth exchange. During the project, participants meet other youth workers from 11 different countries, create a network of international contact and contribute to broaden their organization's contacts across Europe.Target groupsThe participants will prepare a workshop for their target groups at home and at least 100 to 150 youngsters will be involved. This is the starting point of a series of activities touching a large panel of youngsters and they will benefit from new and attractive activities. Social games are process-oriented, its activities can be adapted to the participant and different learning programs can be tried. It follows the principle of openness (young people are active co-designers of their own development), that brings a stronger involvement of the target groups and empowers youngsters. Our project impact youngsters’ social skills, self-confidence and develop their team work. This enriches their social capital and employability.Involving youngsters with fewer opportunities in healthy social activities channel their negative energy and prevent their violent radicalization.PartnersAfter the project, participants act as multiplayer in their own organization and share the knowledge they learned with their co-workers. Each participant will prepare a workshop for their colleagues back home and organize a small social games event in order to share their knowledge locally. This brings some fresh energy and contributes to the higher level of work in their organization and motivates co-workers to educate themselves in the same or similar attractive methods of work.The partners experience an increase of their pedagogical capacity and of the quality of their daily work thanks to more competent and more committed workers. The introduction of new teaching systems and new content develop stronger relationships between partners and their public.Partner will also benefit from the manual and will be able to distribute it among their network of partners.By participating in our project, partners and participants connect between each other and their respective organizations.This foster further exchange of knowledge and competences reinforced regional, national and international cooperation,increase of pedagogical skills and development of new projects.We believe that our project is only the beginning of an educational process that will impact youth organizations, youth workers and youngsters alike and the development of further project is a logical and necessary follow-up that will ensue.

European Expertise is Kuopio Community College’s Erasmus+ KA1 adult education programme that runs from 1.7.2016 through 31.12.2017. The aims of the Kuopio Community College's programme are 1) to strengthen international understanding and skills of personnel, 2) to encourage personnel to acquire new professional skills and international contacts 3) to develop international understanding, knowhow and working methods of Kuopio Community College. In the programme 10 members of personnel will participate structured courses and 13 are doing job shadowing and observation.In order to ensure that the knowledge gained by the staff participating in the Erasmus+ KA1 will benefit all at the Kuopio Community College, participating members will be required to:a. send a message tp Kuopio Community College’s social media sites during their study abroad, b. Submit written reports that will be available to all 400 employees at the college that will detail their professional observations as well as what they are learning while abroad, c. Will conduct training sessions with the College’s other teachers to disseminate the new methods they have learned as well as share their observations, d. Will complete questionnaires provided by the college in order to give useful feedback for the target country’s programme. Kuopio Community College is responsible for defining and carrying out the annual objectives for developing organisation more international. The College will organize a seminar that will address the school’s development of European ideas and practices.The goal of Kuopio Community College’s European Expertise program is to foster a sense of international cooperation. International methodology will become a part of the college’s instruction, leading to new knowledge and skills for the college’s many students. Through this programme students and teachers will learn to appreciate their own as well as others’ culture, leading to a greater understanding of how to live and work together with people from all countries and cultures.

<< Objectives >>We want to achieve education for young people in the area of youth leadership on a european scale, by providing an opportunity to young people to share their experiences and learn with our Irish partners. The objectives are: Community engagement and leadership in the community. Positive role modelsLearning about culture and collaboration with young people outside of their community.Recognition of positive workActive citizenshipSharing good practisesThese objectives will all help the personal development of the participants and provide them with skills and experience that will help them in their lives.<< Activities >>This Exchange is devited into two parts; during the first part we plan to implement a variety of workshops regarding leadership skills where the young people will have the opportunity to explore different areas in their lives where they can show leadership. Community mapping, young people will be asked to examine their areas and look at where young people have an influence, space or a role. European awareness to highlight culture in Europe and draw attention for the young people to see that they are also part of European culture. The second part of exchange we will focus on why we are leaders and why being a leader is important. We are bringing the leadership and being a junior leader in practise by organizing an Halloween event for the local community. Over the week we are having workshops towards the goal of being part of youngsters own living environment. On both parts there will be team building activities for young people to connect and build relationships which will include day trips and scavenger hunts based on the theme of leadership. There will also be a high emphasis on reflection and evaluation with a workshops being provided and space each day for participants to reflect and learn from the day. There will be 13 participants on each partner side. The group will be made up of young people aged 13-20 who have shown an interest in being positive leaders in their community. The young people from Ireland will be from the Northside of Limerick City who have been participating in a youth cafe for that last year and are looking to move onto bigger responsibility. The young people from Finland are coming from the east side of Finland. That part of Finland is mostly a rural area with long distances. The distance between cities creates challenge for travelling, study opportunities ect. Youth workers are sharing the Group of youngsters, 5 participants are working as a peer to peer youth information and counselling workers and has just started to work with their youth leader and 8 participants are trained peer leaders (junior leaders) and the co-operation has been on over 2 years.Exchange gives for the youth workers/youth information workers knowledge and perspective about peer to peer work, voluntary based work, social media, online youth information work and its relation to face to face work. The results of the Exchange can be used in organisations' developments work. Undirectly Exchange is also a study visit for workers to execute international projects with young people and it gives positive experience for all who are part of it. << Impact >>We expect our project to have a positive result in European awareness among young people, this will provide a greater knowledge and understanding of communicating with young people from different cultures and backgrounds for both groups. After these two exchanges youngster will become active citizens in their community but also the feeling that they can be active European citizens and learn more from other cultures and also be peer leaders for youngsters in other countries. We also expect to impact young peoples involvement in future projects by receiving an opportunity like this, being more adventurous to apply for future international projects. For youngsters it is very important also to discover and experience all the international movement opportunities to share this knowledge in their own communities based on this experiences. On a local level we expect to have results in young peoples personal development from gaining the skills learnt through this programme and seeing their hard work recognised by adults and the way that they can exploit it in the future (for example Youthpass). Finally by the end of this project we will have young people who are trained and experienced peer-leaders are able to give effort back to their community and youth spaces being positive role models. Exchange week gives an opportunity for professional youth workers and youth information workers to share good practises and compare what kind of expertise is needed to coordinate peer workers.