The main objective of ACTin’YouTH is to foster youth workers’ intercultural competences with theatrical methodologies aimed at creating local theatre workshops for the social inclusion of young people with different cultural background at risk of social exclusion. In fact, youth workers will gain competences also in the field of non-violent communication, conflict resolution, facilitation and will develop their communicative skills through theatrical methodologies as well as storytelling circles, thus improving intercultural communication competences and innovative approaches for the engagement of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, in order to tackle discrimination and social exclusion. All the acquired skills will be used during the implementation of both local and blended theatre workshops. At the same time, there is a strong emphasis on the protagonism and leadership of the young participants in each phase of the project, as to boost their competences effectively. In nowadays interconnected world, it’s urgent to assure that younger generations really communicate and interact amongst them and it’s also important to search for methods improving mutual collaboration and participation. We believe that intercultural dialogue among young people can highly benefit from creativity and performing methodologies, since they learn how to put into practice intercultural dialogue and gain an alternative way of expressing themselves and the cultural features of the groups they belong to.In particular, theatre and performing arts can lead to an active experimentation of the intercultural dialogue power, experiencing the opportunity to work on self-knowledge, body-language and creativity, by acting and interacting together in the same framework, even though they don’t know each other, or they don’t speak the same language or share the same social and cultural framework.Specific objectives are: - develop a theatre-based training course for improving youth workers’ intercultural competences and social skills, aimed at engaging and involving young people- carry on local intercultural theatre workshops and related on-line activities;- create a cooperative final “digital performance”;- develop a collaborative interactive platform and tools;- produce a methodological manual with a collection of case studies based on local experiences.As a result, we will have:1) 24 TRAINED YOUTH WORKERS from 6 different countries on intercultural and theatre-based communication methodologies2) YOUNG PEOPLE with a different cultural background, taking part to the local activities, will experiment an engaging opportunity to interact with other young people, finding common ways of communication, interaction, mutual understanding and collaboration.So, they will gain- experience in a TARGETED METHODOLOGY to improve their intercultural communication competences that can be useful also for their future professional path and employability potential,- specific TRAINING in the methodology, that they will replicate in local activities led by themselves together with the Youth Workers,- TRANSNATIONAL LEARNING AND TRAINING EXPERIENCE which itself is a great way to make young people aware of the richness of the intercultural encounter.3) INTERACTIVE PLATFORM, to make participants from all partners countries exchange their ideas, their outcomes and their materials on the ongoing activities (at local and transnational level), that will remain after the project’s lifespan as a repository of good practices developed during the project and as e-training tool for further Youth Workers and Young People who’d like to approach the methodology. The platform will also be the digital environment where young people, led by youth workers, will develop, starting from inputs given by the non-formal education sessions, the open, transnational and collaborative theatrical performance online. 4) MANUAL that will collect the results of the projects, the specific challenges and solutions implemented, in order to further spread it at national and international level, particularly addressed to Youth Organisations and Public Authorities that should be interested in creating local intercultural workshops aimed at social inclusion of young people. 5) VIRTUAL NETWORK of all organisations, associations, informal youth groups working with theatre and performative arts as tools for social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.6) INTERNATIONALIZATION OF A NEW METHODOLOGY: through the project, the methodology developed by the partner organisations, gathering together their different experiences in the field of social inclusion, will be tested, qualified and recognised in a transnational context with specific target groups and thus become transferable and replicable in other contexts.

The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The last few years have witnessed a big part of the burden of austerity being heaped onto the shoulders of the continent’s young people. We, the project group, felt there was a need to look into this and see if we, in our professions, could contribute towards something positive.This project was based on a couple of identified needs that we observed in the various participating countries. First, we saw a need for more effective and innovative instruments to encourage young people to become more aware and educated on how to manage one’s private economy. To become financially literate, to put it differently. This need was in large part based on the financial difficulties much of Europe has been going through over the last several years, and which persists still. Second, we found it to be an ongoing need to have more competence and understanding of conflict management among young people. We see clear links between the macro- and the micro level on this topic. Lastly, we had an idea of combining these two areas to attempt to provide concrete tools, especially to group of young people with fewer opportunities, to deal more constructively with troubling situations of financial difficulty without resorting to conflict.Communication about the initial ideas started between a few of the partners who knew each other well from a long list of previous collaborations. The project rationale and a couple of concrete ideas were then shared down the network of acquainted trainers, youth workers and organisations. All partners have been involved in this project based on their special competence or experience related to one or both of the concrete tools the project group wanted to develop. The centrepiece of this project has been to develop and produce two educational and interactive board games, to address financial literacy and conflict management - “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”, respectively.The project has been undertaken with 10 formal partners, with one external partner that has also been involved throughout the whole project - including holding a crucial role in the actual production of all the game pieces for what has become “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”. It was an important criterion for us that all the involved organisations, companies and informal groups are involved as directly as possible in field youth work or local community building.The results include that each partner now is in possession of 1 complete set of “Mission Z” and 4 complete sets of “Real Ideal”, attractively designed and formed in multipurpose materials. All game pieces have been handmade in a village in Portugal, and has thus created some employment during the project period, as well as improved the capacity of the same village and its people to produce more output of a similar sort in the future.Our testing of the concepts for both games has been rigorous. In total we have tested the two games with 653 participants who have all provided us with written feedback. This has enabled us to modify the games during the project period and adjust for input offered to us by the actual target group for both games, the young people themselves. The feedback from these participants has been overwhelmingly positive, across the board. This is the main thing for us, and gives us a feeling of having contributed well to the field of youth work and non-formal learning methods.The outputs of this project has also reached other circles, such as banks and universities that are keen on utilising these games in their education of financial literacy and conflict management, respectively. Some concrete partnerships along these lines have already been formalised.For more, and updated information also after the project’s end, we invite the reader to visit our website: http://bb-games.eu

<< Objectives >>The objectives of the COM project are to produce a larger set of tools for youth workers through digitalisation, training to develop their capacity and methodologies to engage with young people with fewer opportunities including those who live in rural areas by strengthening transnational cooperation between organisations with less experience in European projects. To map new practices, methodologies, to support and promote youth work in the local communities by bringing the European dimension.<< Implementation >>To reach this goal, the COM project proposes to develop a training on digital tools to develop transversal competencies for youth workers, a transnational seminar to diagnose challenges on social media and work locally, an elaboration of local survey and research that pick up the reflection of youth work situation in the partners countries and a session of debates and workshop to adapt youth activities to promote social inclusion and active participation.<< Results >>In the COM project, we will develop a project website, a toolkit to use digital tools, explanatory videos to work on social media with the young people, an information report regarding youth work practices in the partners countries, and a interactive platform dedicated to young people to map opportunities in their local communities and in the partners countries. COM will end with a multiplier event that will bring together European and local officials to show the results of the project.

"<< Background >>We have observed that the grassroots sector, or the more negatively perceived term “underground” sector” is composed of people with a highly entrepreneurial spirit, blasting with innovative ideas that can enrich their community economically, culturally and inclusively.We wish to award young project-makers and idea-creators by giving the grassroots and growing layer of society a platform to learn and grow as an up-coming social- or cultural entrepreneur. What we have observed is that this segment, our target group, is in need of recognition and support, but more importantly, encouragement and motivation, especially during the last two Covid-dominated years. This is a group that has known hardship and inequality and have a harder time reinventing themselves in the current job market, but has therefore developed cultural structures that promote initiatives, foster passion for creating unique cultural community opportunities and a common network. We intend to work with our target group, not only on the professional level, but mostly by focusing on the social inclusion of the individuals that are passionate about creating something unique for their community. The goal is to generate sympathy, solidarity and help those that are socially vulnerable, through creating a place where value is created through immediate social impact on the community and focusing on social and cultural grass-root initiatives.The concept of SOUP is about creating a community that is able to support itself by having its members be the force of action and support. Instead of having to apply for big funds or to have to find investors to launch your project idea, the ""Soup"" creates an environment where the neighbor will become the ""investor"", by employing a donation based set-up. They rely on value and skill sharing: By communities for communities, through the means of a Circular Economy. In this way the project funded will already have a seed planted in the community and gained an interest from possible clients/users to be involved in the outcome of the project. Not only will the community gain awareness of the ideas of local entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurs themselves will have the opportunity to test out and see if there is a market for their proposal. They will at the same time also be guided with suggestions of how to improve their initial idea to make it more suitable for the market.<< Objectives >>The overall objective is to create a supportive community that will foster a sense of belonging and through democratic participation engage young people in the society promoting active citizenship, and to create a spark for young entrepreneurs to-be. We aim to create a safe space and a platform (both physical and digital) for project-makers and idea holders for community based initiatives to share their ideas and visions. By providing young people with a new way of finding support, both financially and personally, we aim for more young people to gain encouragement to create and implement their ideas in the local communities. We strive towards making social crowdfunding a common practice in Europe, as we believe it fosters many new possibilities in many different sectors.<< Implementation >>By implementing the SOUP events and conducting a detailed research and analysis on the impact of these kinds of events, we will be able to successfully develop an innovative concept for community building. This innovation is going to be led through various activities, that each are linked to the goal, by eg. developing a Guidebook, for other communities to use, and thereby be able to use the methodologies created in this project. Moreover, the Guidebook is going to include a “why SOUP” section based on the analysis made on the added value the concept gives the local communities.Social crowdfunding events inspired by SOUP, will have an impact on the attitudes and beliefs of the people of the communities. To make sure we reach the target group and manage to build a community around the concept, parts of the implementation process is going to be outreach and marketing based content. The partners will help each other with marketing strategies and we will use various social media platforms, as the majority of young people are engaged in 1 or more social media platforms. Furthermore we have included a LTT to ensure the staff, youth workers and engaged young people involved in the implementation of the SOUPs, will be able to learn and share methodologies with each other to better the multiplier events, hosted by each organisation. The multiplier events are to expand the awareness of social crowdfunding to better the opportunities for young project-makers. These events will be based upon the published Guidebook, that will be shared with all of the attendees of the multiplier events.<< Results >>The desired and expected outcome of this project, after its completion, is that of having created a sustainable and ongoing event; as well as having generated a bigger sense of belonging to a community without borders.It will have the ability of reaching marginalized people and vulnerable groups in the society, both giving young grass-root entrepreneurs and project-makers a place to develop and grow, but also creating a social event for networking and thereby building a community.A physical outcome is the generation of a Guidebook. This will consist of a compilation of all the acquired knowledge, ups and downs, instructions and information of the SOUPS. This will provide future organizations needed information to help them decide whether the SOUP is relevant to their specific community; how to then adapt the SOUP to the local target culture, how to implement the SOUP, its stages, how to promote and do the outreach, how to organize it, etc. The concept of social crowdfunding will be spread into multiple communities, and thereby creating a large network for young entrepreneurs and grassroots for them to share and learn from each other. Lastly, making the concept of SOUP recognizable, so newcomers to countries or cities would easily know how and where to build a new network, and thereby easier integrate in the local community."

Best practices Exchange for youth Trainers in the field of Sharing Economy and Ecology (BETSEE) aims at exchanging best practices in the field of ecological education with a special focus on “green” sharing economy among organizations that are all expert in youth education, each with a focus on a different target group. will focus on environmental education and “green” sharing economy to improve the youth workers’ teaching competences and increase, at once, disadvantaged youth’ soft skills. The idea of implementing this exchange of best practices was born from the need observed by the project partners of supporting youth educators in adopting an innovative methodology able to teach young people how to be eco-responsible in order to tackle climate change and waste. In Europe the overconsumption of goods has reached levels that are no longer sustainable and that are bringing to major environmental issues. According to the European Commission, “we currently use 16 tons of material per person per year, of which 6 tons become waste”. Learning what new “green” practices are and how sharing economy works can also be beneficial for disadvantaged younger people who have difficulties in finding their way into the job world. By studying ecological practices and by learning what sharing economy is and its advantages for future young entrepreneurs, young people with fewer opportunities will have the chance to acquire soft skills useful for their integration in the job marker, for instance, they can develop critical thinking by reflecting on the importance to reduce waste and to avoid intensive production/consuming behaviors; they can increase their entrepreneurial skills by learning about the sharing economy businesses and so on. BETSEE will organize 4 Study Visits in each partner country to exchange good practices on how to train youth workers to give classes focusing on “green” sharing economy and green habits among youth, encouraging, at the same time the development of their soft skills to succeed in life and work. Once partners’ educators will have observed best practices implemented in the other partners’ countries, they will organize Local Activities in their communities to promote sharing economy and green habits among young people from disadvantaged groups with limited access to non-formal education offer. Thanks to the observation of best practices for teaching “green” sharing economy, the partner organizations will be able to collect the best methods for youth education in the BETSEE Green E-Manual. This Manual is the central product of the project and will include 2 sections: section 1 with the methodology and best practices on how to develop and deliver courses about “green” sharing economy and ecological practices also promoting the acquisition of soft skills among disadvantaged youth and section 2 listing the latest “green” sharing economy tools and apps in each partners’ country. Therefore, BETSEE proposes to use the best practices of experienced youth organizations, each one focusing on a specific target group of youth (young people from the suburbs, unemployed young women, young people from rural areas and foreigners and migrants), to train youth workers teaching to young people soft skills (critical thinking, entrepreneurial skills, ICTs, curiosity, communication, etc.) to develop ecological behaviors thanks to “green” sharing economy. Finally, the International training of BETSEE will help young people and youth workers to consolidate their knowledge acquired during the learning process started in the beginning of the project.