<< Background >>From a youth perspective social inclusion is the process of individual’s self-realisation within a society, acceptance and recognition of one’s potential by social institutions, integration in the web of social relations in a community. In order to develop and express the full potential of their talents the young people need to acquire different sets of skills and have access to adequate sources of specialized information. The efforts are focused on the young people pursuing to develop their artistic talents and most specifically to learn how to express through the audio-visual medium and the cinema language.Cinema is one of the most team-based professions of all that requires a vast set of personal, communicational, creative and organisational skills from all who practice it and because of its characteristics, it is an amazing tool to approach young people and strengthen the chances to help their inclusion in society as full right adults. This gives the young people a chance to learn the most important competences about all the aspects and professions of filmmaking and further apply them in their life.The envisaged needs are the following: - No adequate interactive digital training content for youth expressing interest for filmmaking - No training content on filmmaking adapted to low-educated and marginalized young people - No training content oriented to youth workers allowing them to explain easily the filmmaking basics and to reach youth at risk of isolation - No opportunity for disadvantaged youth to express and develop their artistic talents and to continue their professional realisation in the field of art (audio-visual and performing)<< Objectives >>= ObjectivesThe general objective of the project is to foster youth creativity in the field of cinema and video making thus enhancing the development of social skills and competences affected by the isolation during the pandemic times and identifying talents and stimulating their advance to creative domains in cinema and video production.The specific objectives are:- To create training content adapted to low-educated young people on how to improve their communication and personal expression skills using attractive, digital and creative tools such as the fundamentals of the filmmaking.- To give disadvantaged young people access to specialised cinema education and broaden their opportunities for professional development- To give the participants real chance to practice their talents and self-expression by free interactive digital tools which stimulate proactiveness and interest in creating short films, based on specific topic and their own video presentations.<< Implementation >>The planned activities are according to the Work Breakdown Structure of the project and will encompass:= Project management- General management of the project - Organization and hosting of transnational partner meetings- Internal information flow= Development of the Project ResultsPR1 Young Filmmakers’ Tutorial PR2 Young Filmmakers` Interactive VideobookPR3 Online Cinema Simulator= Sharing and promotion activities, external communication and publicity measures= Quality assurance and evaluation- Quality of the elaborated training materials in methodological and content related aspects;- Internal quality assurance in project administration aspect;= Involvement of associated partners= Multiplier events = Activities towards exploitation and sustainability<< Results >>Upon its completion the project will achieve the following results:- Identifying and describing areas of disparities, level of alienation and barriers in integration processes in local community due to not understanding of the importance of core social and communication skills, including experience of self-expression, self-presentation and self-confidence.- Removing barriers towards equal participation of targeted youth in socio-economic processes in their countries through ameliorating of their communication and cultural competences.- Stimulating pro-active behaviour of the young people at risk of isolation for acquiring of necessary knowledge and social competences towards successful civic inclusion in the society through the medium of basic cinema education.- Enhancing the opportunities for potential professional development in the field of art and filmmaking for youngsters, esp. those in socially-economic disadvantaged situation- Provision of support by experts in self-development, self-expression and self-presentation on how to implement film making fundamentals in personal aspect and for individual purposes.- Enhancement of the attractiveness of the organized youth activities and present the advantages of basic filmmaking knowledge.- Offering of an assistive and attractive tool for youth to ameliorate their understanding of the needs for including discussions on social competences due to increasing of the complexity within civic relations and risk of socially loosing posed by the hardened situation of COVID-19.- Supporting cross-thematic share of opinion on the difficulties towards successful integration of the elaborated training using practical topics and proactive approach.- Establishing multilingual online platform for share of useful examples, knowledge, advices and feedback on social skills and communication competences for youth developed by film making.- Strengthening the understanding and ameliorating the attitudes of disadvantaged young people in fields such as social communication and modern way of life, defending their positions, active citizenship, empowerment, social inclusion, equal opportunities and managing of personal change through the cinema language.- Supporting the insertion into every-day activities of local youth organisations of subject related to the development of social competences and communication skills.

"<< Background >>In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding climate change, its causes and consequences. The warming of the climate system is undeniable. However, there is also a deluge of misinformation designed to confuse the public and generate doubt about the existence of climate change.Politicians, scientists and practitioners have drawn attention to the problem of misinformation in the climate change debate. Fake News can have a devastating effect on issues where understanding observable and scientific facts is essential. As a result, opinion is divided on fundamental issues such as man-made global warming.Nevertheless, the majority of younger people consider the fight against climate change a fundamental task and many young people are actively involved (https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2224). On the other hand, studies have shown that older adults are more susceptible to the spread of fake news and digital misinformation in general (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341496718_Aging_in_an_Era_of_Fake_News). They tend to be less informed and more sceptical about climate change.In order to counter online misinformation, we need an understanding of the techniques employed in climate misinformation, as well as approaches to neutralise misinforming content. Critical thinking and media literacy are key. Thus, the project addresses very urgent needs of the global community to find strategies to combat climate change. To do this, all parts of society must be properly informed and empowered so that they can engage those who may still doubt climate change.Stop Lies About Climate Change (SLACC) is taking up these findings and adopts an innovative approach. The project tackles climate fake news in the context of youth work, to strengthen young people as potential “Climate Ambassadors” who support their parents' and grandparents' generation in debunking populist distortions about our climate.Therefore, SLACC has been carefully designed to meet the needs of European youth workers and is aligned with partners’ needs, all of whom are training providers to youth workers or young people.Needs of training providers to young people:Training providers around Europe share a common need to engage in climate education and to find novel ways to address young people's interests. By working in a European project the SLACC consortium can combine expertise and experience to successfully develop a new and transferable approach. Climate Change is one of the EUs education priorities and SLACC’s focus on building competences to fight climate change will allow training providers to integrate transversal, digital, social and climate competences that have been in focus over the last years.Needs of youth workers:Youth work needs to address current trends so that it remains attractive to young people and reflects their needs. SLACC can provide playful and innovative informal learning tools for youth workers.Needs of young people:A Eurobarometer poll shows that 67% of Europeans aged 15-30 express that fighting climate change should be the EU's top priority. Against this background SLACC addresses their needs by providing them with gamified learning aimed to:-empower them to expose distorted facts among their parents and grandparents and motivate them to live more climate-consciously.-equip them with critical thinking skills and media literacy as well as with communication and advocacy competences.Needs of older generations:As mentioned above, older people are more likely to fall for fake news. This means that they need to be sensitised to fake news. SLACC responds to their needs by providing them with tailored information in the form of intergenerational learning, with the aim of encouraging them to adopt more climate-friendly behaviour.<< Objectives >>The project SLACC tackles climate fake news in the context of youth work. The overall objective of SLACC is to strengthen young people as potential climate ambassadors who support their parents' and grandparents' generation in debunking populist distortions about our climate. In doing so, we contribute to two important European priorities - “Environment and fight against climate change” as well as “Increasing quality, innovation and recognition of youth work”. This will be achieved by developing a state-of-the-art online learning game and accompanying resources to support youth workers, trainers and educators working with young people. Through the SLACC programme they will increase their capacity, competence and resources available to them to promote critical thinking skills, necessary to expose lies about climate change, misrepresentations of facts and scientific findings. The ultimate goal is for them to prepare young people to become climate ambassadors to defend our planet against destructive practices.To achieve this SLACC adopts a two-fold reach-out and impact strategy: (1)Youth workers will be provided with a training course aimed to enable them to use innovative gamified digital resources and face-to-face methods to strengthen young people in rejecting lies and misinformation about Climate Change and to build up their confidence as ambassadors for Climate Protection. Using gamification as a motivational strategy to empower young people as Climate Ambassadors and equip them to be able to detect lies about Climate Change is a new education method in this context.(2)Young people will be provided with an informal, playful learning opportunity that uses the motivational power of gamification to foster their critical thinking and equip them with the knowledge and skills to counter climate myths with scientific facts. This will empower them to spread truthful information and attitudes about our climate among their peers as well as their parents' and grandparents' generation to motivate them to live more climate conscious lifes. The achievements targeted by SLACC for different target groups can be summarised as follows:(1) Youth workers are provided with resources that give them the chance to keep their activities attractive to young people and that reflect their needs.(2) Young people are given the opportunity to actively engage with a topic that the majority of young people feel is important. SLACC also gives them the platform to learn how to become climate ambassadors and thus make a positive contribution to combating climate change and protecting our planet for their own and future generations.(3) Older generations benefit from intergenerational learning as they are provided with tailored information by their (grand)children to educate them about the lies of climate change and encourage them to adopt more climate-friendly behaviour that will benefit future generations.(4) The project will spur achievements for partners and other providers of training for young people. The SLACC consortium has a wide range of knowledge and experience - knowledge of climate change, experience with fake news and its debunking, skills in developing trainings, gamified online platforms, practical approaches to validating informal learning and creating digital badges - which uniquely qualifies it to develop this innovative gamified approach. Training providers around Europe will profit from such a new viable and transferable approach that allows them to integrate climate-related topics into current activities in novel ways to address young people's interests and needs. Therefore, the project gives us the chance to take up wider trends and policy with our training activities. Climate Change is one of the European education priorities and SLACC’s focus on building competences to fight climate change will allow us to integrate transversal, digital, social and climate competences that have been in focus over the last years.<< Implementation >>Climate change will be the challenge of the next decades that nobody will be able to escape. Therefore, all members of society need to develop the skills to contribute to cope with it. To this end, we will develop new training resources that can be used with youth workers to enable them to address the issue in a playful and targeted way with young people who are involved in youth activities and who become climate ambassadors.The project consortium will develop four new resources:●R1: SLACC Compilation: The first phase includes a qualitative research consisting of desk research on fake news about climate change and strategies to counter them. In addition, qualitative interviews with youth workers (3/country) and focus groups with young people (8-10/country) on their experience with sharing and debunking fake news on climate change will be conducted. The results will form the basis for further development of subsequent results and will also provide partners with an overview of existing climate myths and practical examples to debunk them. This phase will also consolidate working relationships with associated partners, who will be interviewed on relevant topics.●R2: SLACC Game and online gamification environment: Based on the qualitative research a range of multimedia learning content (videos, learning quizzes etc.) around the deliberately distorted representations of Climate Change and the real scientific facts will be created and (co-)produced by young people themselves, supported by youth workers. The multimedia contents will be inserted in the Gamification platform.●R3: SLACC mobile App: Relevant contents from R2 will be prepared and made available in a mobile learning app to give young people easy access to the interactive learning formats.The app is also used to validate learning by rewarding learning outcomes with a digital badge.●R 4: SLACC training programme will be based on previous Rs and will be a highly interactive, modular course to address climate myths in an informal, gamified way. It will use the gamified SLACC platform and games in general as pedagogic approach with the ultimate aim to empower young people to become Climate Ambassadors.Youth workers can find elements in all the resources that they can use independently or as a whole package in their activities to specifically strengthen the young people's competences. They in turn become ""trainers"" themselves and pass on their knowledge.All resources will be published online and can be downloaded and used free of charge. Where possible, editable formats are used so that materials can be adapted and transferred for further use.The consortium will carry out various activities to implement the SLACC resources and involve the target groups:●In the first project phase, 20 youth workers and 60-70 young people will be asked about their experiences with climate myths and their strategies to debunk them. In this way, it is assured that the experience and knowledge of the target groups is incorporated directly into the development work.●21 Youth workers will participate in a training course and subsequently implement learning projects with 150 young people. This will contribute to improving and finalising materials and promotion, as well as playing an important role in our multiplier events, and sustainability strategy as multipliers for the impact of the project.●In terms of dissemination, the plan we have is sound and will be supported by seven events scheduled for months 22/23. These will ensure that our results are promoted and that stakeholders actively understand their value and are motivated to introduce them into their own organisations.●The development of the results will be accompanied by transversal and project management activities to ensure their implementation, effectiveness and sustainability as resources for sustainable use in European youth work.<< Results >>Climate change will be the challenge of the next decades that nobody will be able to escape. Therefore, all members of society need to develop the skills to contribute to cope with it. To this end, we will develop new training resources that can be used-with youth workers to enable them to address the issue in a playful and targeted way with young people-with young people who are involved in youth activities and who become climate ambassadorsAs immediate results of the project SLACC will develop four new resources:Result 1 – SLACC Compilation on climate fake news: a systematic collection of myths, populist misconceptions and distorted scientific facts about climate change that are spread on the internet and in social media in particular. These will be accompanied with the corresponding scientific facts that help to unmask the fake news, and strategies and best practices to counter climate misinformation that can be employed by young people. Result 2 - SLACC Game and online gamification environment: a range of Multimedia learning content around the deliberately distorted representations of Climate Change and the real scientific facts that are available. Result 3: SLACC mobile App: a learning App with interactive gamified learning contents on climate myths. The app will allow for the validation of informal learning which enables participants to receive a digital competence badge. Result 4: SLACC training programme for youth workers: a highly interactive, modular course that enables them to understand scientific facts about Climate Change and recognise fake news and how they are generated and spread in Social Media, use the gamified SLACC platform and games in general as pedagogic approach with young people with the ultimate aim to empower young people to become Climate Ambassadors. An implementation guide with an overview of the current lies about Climate Change, an introduction to gamification, guidance and materials for informal online and face-face learning strengthening young people as Climate ambassadors, as well as highlights and lessons learnt from implementing the SLACC approach will accompany the training modules and can be used as additional resource.Immediate outcomes of the SLACC project will be:-21 youth workers and 60-70 young people will be involved in interviews and focus groups (R1). They will learn about climate myths and how they are spread and will be motivated to continue to develop their knowledge and skills in terms of thinking critically and debunk climate myths.-21 youth workers will participate in the LTTA: they will be involved in the training course and will develop their competences to embed the topic of climate change, climate myths and how to debunk them into their informal learning activities with young people -150 young people who will be involved in the piloting activities carried out in the partner countries after the LTTAOther Results:The project will make a significant contribution to updating the education offered in the youth sector and complementing it with very topical issues. This will ensure that youth work addresses current issues with innovative learning methods and reflects global trends and priorities:-Partners and youth organisations will have more relevant, high quality training products that are free to use-Youth workers will be able to apply innovative gamified learning methods and use them in their work with young people-Young people will act as climate ambassadors and encourage older generations to act in a climate-friendly way-Older people will be empowered by the climate ambassadors and encouraged to act in a climate-friendly wayThe project will generate results for the partner organisations: They will develop the competences of their own staff and trainers in educational as well as practical ways. They will learn about innovative gamified training approaches that can be transferred to other target groups."

An increasing number of European countries is implementing online civic and commercial services to enable easier, cheaper and faster administrative operations for citizens. The future trend is obvious: the demand of such services will increase significantly and so will the implementation by governments and businesses. Even though e-Government and e-Commerce offer a myriad of benefits, taking advantage of such services requires a certain amount of digital skills and know-how, which disadvantaged groups of people often lack.The objective of My e-Start is to equip disadvantaged groups of people with skills necessary for using the most common e-Government and e-Commerce services in their countries and ensuring a positive (first) e-experience as well as a sense of digital achievement. My e-Start is focusing on a group, which is particularly vulnerable to digital exclusion, namely the elderly, those with low levels of education and training and those with a migration background.The main output of the project is the development of an extremely simple online course and a user-friendly e-platform adapted to specific needs of the target group. Both the online course and the e-platform will put a particular emphasis on the use of ‘easy language’, simple instructions, clear visual elements and well-structured content to avoid confusion and overstress of the target group. The aim of the online course is to provide disadvantaged groups of people with very basic knowledge about common e-Government and e-Commerce services in their countries (e.g. e-banking, tax declaration, e-card) and how to use them. To ensure an implementation of the course in different contexts and environments, My e-Start will design and develop a comprehensive manual for adult educators and/or training providers working with the target group and intending to implement the online course into their curricula. The explicit aim of My e-Start is to contribute to digital inclusion of disadvantaged groups of people and address the increasing digital gap by designing, developing and promoting sustainable and tailored products, which are widely applicable and highly impactful. The project consortium consists of experts, who have vast experience in areas including adult education, digital competence and the inclusion of disadvantaged groups. During the whole duration of the project and beyond, partners will ensure an extensive dissemination and valorisation of the project through established national and international networks of key stakeholders to guarantee high visibility and a widespread effect.

The project New Horizons aimed at addressing the needs of a relative large and heterogeneous target group - people who have acquired disability after an accident or illness which affected severely their personal and professional life. While a comprehensive quantitative analysis of employment situation of people with various types of disabilities has been published by Eurostat in 2015, the qualitative analysis of the concrete needs of people who have lost their job or are at risk of losing it due to some accident or long-standing illness, are still insufficient.One of the main aims of the current project was to explore in details the challenges this broad target group is facing in the process of re-integration in the labour market and society as whole. This was the preparation part of the elaboration of a customised training programme for career counselling counsellors of people with acquired disabilities. The programme was first piloted with a small group of experienced adult trainers/career counsellors at EU level and then disseminated with broader groups of adult educators/counsellors/social workers at national level. The training programme was also accompanied by a Career counselling manual which described the holistic methodology of the counselling process following the principles of the existential counselling - focusing first on fostering the self-awareness, self-esteem and self-motivation of people with disabilities, and thus enhancing their career perspectives, improving their employability skills and empowering them for full participation in the society.The Empower yourself career kit summarised at the end in a visual way the most important steps of the programme, with concrete activities, advises and motivational stories for the long-term unemployed people with disabilities. Mutual exchange of experience, ideas and support was made possible through the Online Social Tool which was evaluated as a very useful and well-structured e-learning platform.Another innovative element of the New Horizons project concept was the possibility for assessment and validation of concrete skills and competences acquired by the counsellors in the course of the implementation of the New Horizons Career Counselling Programme which aimed at fostering their personal and professional development.Last, but not least, the project results will presented and discussed with relevant stakeholders as ministries, agencies, employers, NGO’s working with people with disabilities within the frame of round tables in each partner country in order to raise awareness about the needs and the potential of this disadvantaged target group.The direct target groups which took part in the the project training activities and outputs are 110 trainers and counsellors in the participating partner countries, who are working actively with unemployed people with different (physical or mental) disabilities acquired after an accident or a long-standing illness. The indirect target groups which were reached through the various training and dissemination events as well as through the partner networks reached beyond 500 at international level.The New Horizons Methodology, that was applied in the current project, has the following key values:• Holistic approach closely following the principles of the existential counselling which starts with exploring and understanding the context and specific needs of the counselled person before defining together the concrete steps and measures about personal and career development. • Involvement of all partners and distribution of tasks corresponding to the concrete areas of expertise of each partner• Orientation towards Competence Oriented Learning in the development and implementation of all educational and training materials• Promotion of Validation of Formal and Informal Learning for all target groups and final beneficiaries • Impact on EU level: Project management and training/research experts in each partner country Beside the long-term impact on unemployed people with acquired disabilities, other directly linked target group also could benefit from the project results in the short- and long run:• Career counsellors and adult trainers experienced in working with disadvantaged groups• Patients’ associations and other NGOs who support people with varies types of disabilities • Health and psychological staff in hospitals/rehabilitation centers.For a widespread impact of New Horizons project outputs, awareness raising among the following stakeholders as well as closer cooperation between them were fostered in the short and long run:• HR-Managers and Managing Directors of companies that are socially responsible• Policy makers such as ministries (Labour and Social Affairs, Health), agencies such as Agency for Social Assistance, etc.• Labour market authorities such as Employment Agencies, Job centers etc.• General Public

"The primary objective of the STEER (Supporting the Transition from Education to Employment for Youth at Risk) project was to design, develop, deliver, and test a comprehensive training programme for youth workers in transition planning. Trained youth workers using the knowledge acquired through the STEER project, utilized their training to support the transition from education to employment for NEETs (a young person who is no longer in the education system and who is not working or being trained for work) and young unemployed. Thus STEER project promoted the Erasmus+ horizontal priority for “Inclusive education, training and youth” as it aimed to enhance “the access, participation and performance of disadvantaged learners and facilitating their transitions: between different levels and types of education and training; from education/training to the world of work”.More specifically STEER involved:• Designing and developing a training programme for youth workers, which included modules such as: skills for the future labour market, transition planning, psychological mentoring, developing life management and social skills, developing soft and transferable skills, and provision of career guidance and counselling.• Delivering a series of blended learning train-the-trainer seminars in each partner country, to a total of more than 180 youth workers.• Testing the effectiveness of the STEER training programme in pilot actions that involved the trained youth workers providing transition support to at least 900 NEETs and young unemployed within a four month period.The STEER training programme involved the development of an innovative e-training platform and e-portal (O5) and digital learning content (O3/O4) and guides (O4). The STEER e-training platform was based on open-source, Web 2.0 technologies, in order to ensure its sustainability, and it also adhered to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, so that its open teaching material would be accessible to both disabled learners and training professionals. The STEER dissemination and sustainability activities mainstreamed and spread the use of the e-training platform and the training programme to all relevant stakeholders at local, national, and European level. As a result, STEER was in accordance to and promoted the Erasmus+ horizontal priority for “Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era”. In particular, STEER contributed ""to mainstream and spread the utilization of open and innovative education, training and youth pedagogies.” It also “supported synergies between education, research and innovation activities, digitisated quality learning content and promoted the use of ICT as a driver for systemic change which increased the quality and relevance of education, training and youth policies at all levels.”Finally, STEER advanced the Erasmus+ Youth field-specific priority of “Promoting high-quality youth work” by:- Facilitating the transition of NEETs and young unemployed to employability.- Supporting youth workers in developing skills and methods that help them provide assistance to young people facing social and financial obstacles.- Professionalising youth workers and furthering the validation of youth-work and non-formal learning by awarding the Youthpass certificate to each youth worker that successfully completed the STEER training seminars, pilot actions, and assessment.The STEER Consortium was constituted on the basis of: a) the priorities addressed, b) the partners’ expertise and experience, and c) the effectiveness of transnationality. Thus, the partnership was made up of 6 partners from 6 countries encountering different situations regarding youth work, youth unemployment, and NEETs in their respective national contexts. At the same time, all partners had previous experience in the project-related areas, such as youth work, training NEETs, initiatives strengthening youth employability, Youthpass framework, developing technologies and ICT tools for learning, mainstreaming, evaluation, and dissemination.The implementation of the STEER project was an important step towards building a pattern of professionalising youth work in comprehensive education to employment transition planning of NEETs and young unemployed, especially in the countries and regions with the highest corresponding rates. STEER project established synergies and bridges between local and national youth organisations, PES, Youth Guarantee actors, HR companies, and employers who benefited the most out of this dynamic and multiplied its effect at the local, regional, national, European levels. The long-term impact of the STEER project would be the contribution in decreasing youth unemployment and NEETs rates at all levels EU wide, thus coming closer to the EU2020 targets. The STEER project’s overall structure as well as its activities and outputs were targeted and will continue to be targeted to that end."