"As underlined by the EU in the document ""Towards a Sustainable Europe"" (2018) and the following contributions by the Members of the Multi-Stakeholder Platform (2019), education systems are not yet able to transmit the necessary skills and knowledge to contribute to a sustainable development. Among the EU's key recommendations is the integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESS) into school curricula, in order to enhance the role of educational institutions and its actors, including students, in achieving the goals set by the Agenda 2030 (UN, 2015).The project “CLASS - Choose to Learn Adopting Sustainability Standards” intends to develop an educational framework consistent with these objectives, integrating the economic, social (eg inclusion and human rights) and environmental (eg protection of natural resources) dimensions.The achievement of such a goal requires a profile reinforcement of the teachers, who must be increasingly able to use teaching and evaluation methods in order to create links between school and the real world, highlighting the social usefulness of learning.The activities will involve one high school for each of the 4 countries involved (IT, PR, FR and DE): they will participate in the activity planning and the testing of integrated educational paths, aimed at the inclusion and civic responsibility of the students. One class for each school (around 80 students in total) will test interdisciplinary curricula where ESS will be the cross-curricular theme, designed by teachers (40 in total) and operators / volunteers of Third Sector Organizations (1 for each school). 10 students for each class (at ESL risk or low performances) will be involved in extra-curricular voluntary activities in the same institutions, in order to enhance key civic and social skills.Methodologically, the project will refer to recent literature, such as the concept of Living School (O'Brien & Howard, 2016) and Educational Interconnection (Warner & Elser, 2015), which promote an education founded on a global, based-on-experience knowledge, that encourages students to establish a contact and a dialogue with the world.The teachers, in order to build an organic vision of ""education"" – not only linked to skills and knowledge, but also aimed to raise awareness of universally shared needs and values – will be called to design and test new teaching methods, such as Solution-Based Learning and Real World Learning, moving from a transmissive to a transformative approach, where knowledge is co-constructed within the social context.At the same time, new assessment tools will be designed and tested, able to detect both formal and informal learning, not only related to the contents learned but -above all- related to the learning process, stimulating students to ""learn to learn"". The evaluation methodology proposed in the new educational paradigm, thus intends to integrate the standard assessment based on grades and tests with a fluid and dynamic evaluation, based on the recognition and empowerment of inclusive and positive behaviors.The project long-term results will be the re-design of school curricula, in order to make room for the ESS as a transversal theme, creatively and innovatively linking school subjects and sustainable development objectives. The expected impact is the opening of traditional curricula to the real world in order to create real changes, capable of improving the socio-cultural reality (Eflin & Sheaffer, 2006).The construction of new educational networks, experimenting collaborations between schools and Third Sector Organisations, will make it possible to enhance volunteering as a facilitator for the transfer of school-learned knowledge / skills to socially challenging extra-school contexts. The expected result for students and teachers is a greater awareness of Sustainability, as a holistic and multidimensional concept.The ultimate aim, which will ensure the sustainability of the CLASS project, is to stimulate a bottom-up multi-sector and multi-level dialogue and comparison process, to propose ""evidence-based"" educational policies valid both at national and European level, capable of triggering a virtuous process that has a positive impact not only on the quality of European education systems but also on the Third Sector Organisations ,that are involved in the construction of a more sustainable future."

"The project ""MELoDY - MEthods for Learning Disorders in Youth"", was born as a new melody to listen, interpret, share and promote based on the most innovative methods at European level and on the best practices at school level in the treatment of disorders related to learning of boys and girls of school age and at real risk of ESL, starting from an comparative analysis on the condition of Learning Disorders within the school curriculum. There are laws that protect the right to study, but students with Learning Disorders need more time and compensatory and dispensatory means and also a greater preparation, as well as attention, from the teaching staff. The MELoDY project refers to 3 main priorities of the Programme: 1) SCHOOL EDUCATION: Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage; 2) SCHOOL EDUCATION: Strengthening the profile (s) of the teaching profession; 3) HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion and with this in mind the project aims to transfer to the teachers, the target group of the MELoDY project, a new method of approach with the boys and girls with LD and provide them with a toolkit, a distance training module consultable and available at the end of the training in the presence and the MELoDY Charter for all the contributions, which can then be used in the classroom and which can, on the one hand, facilitate them in the relationship and management of young people with LD and, on the other, face the risk factors that make these young people more vulnerable and at risk of ESL school dropout, to be considered as final beneficiaries. The partners are all experts in European projects in the sector (except P5, which however specializes in teaching and assisting young adults with special needs in completing an education and / or finding and keeping a job) and has already worked on a or more topic of the project. In this partnership of 7 partners, Antares (P1) will coordinate the project and all the other partners will contribute to MELoDY's management, in particular: CRIA (P3) will coordinate the Quality system, GEMS-NI (P2) will coordinate the activities of Dissemination and Impact; SPIR OSLO (P5) will propose the guidelines for the sustainability of the project; DESINCOOP (P4) will develop and coordinate the communication plan, while the IC SPOLTORE school (P6) will coordinate the internal evaluation of all the IOs produced by MELoDY in collaboration with the (P7) AEFH-Agruption de Escolas ""Francisco de Holanda"". Particular attention will be focused to foster communication and exchange of experiences between the partners (5 project meetings will be organized) in order to create a close-knit team focused on the full success of MELoDY. The tools produced by the partnership, within the 6 IO, will offer recipients and beneficiaries an integrated package of innovative tools such as the Toolkit for teachers specialized in DSA that arises from the results of the comparative analysis; the E-learning module for teachers that aims to provide the teachers involved with a valid context and training tool directly addressed to the target groups (self-training) with the aim of providing all the necessary information on the good practices already in place, on the results obtained, on the need to identify and contrast prejudices in order to favour a collaborative and inclusive approach between those who will then deal with the final beneficiaries and finally the MELoDY Charter which systematizes all the work done, enhancing the philosophy and products, underlining how the methodology used is able to guarantee added value to the target group-teachers and significant positive effects for the final beneficiaries - young people with LD and potential ESL. Finally, an important operating segment of the process will be the dissemination and sustainability of the results; with the explicit intention of involving the widest possible number of potential users of MELoDY tools and methods, to obtain an appropriate impact at local, national and European level, numerous forms of external communication will be used to increase the impact not only at the level internal to partners and territorial, but also at national and European level. The goal is to create products in the 5 languages of the partnership that can be interesting by a large number of people being innovative, free, of European dimension and immediately usable."

"Strengthening life skills to achieve a higher level of well-being is one of the fundamental elements for achieving better results in the professional field, but also personal especially for those who spend their profession helping others and making the relationship the cornerstone of their intervention. As part of the project FOCUS - FOstering the Capability of social workers delivering edUcation on life Skills we have chosen to turn to social sector operators and in particular to social workers, educators, community leaders, psychologists, staff all employed in the centeres managed by the organization partner, with the possibility of extending the target group to all educational agencies . For this purpose, FOCUS has provided for the implementation of an innovative model for the training of LIFE SKILLS and emotional Intelligence, based on the results of the needs analysis made on the target group. Thanks to this project, it was intended to equip operators in the third sector and in particular those who work in the three partner organizations of the project, with the skills to face the working context in a more functional way and by making sure transfer their acquired skills to guest users in order to promote a real change in the attitude with which they face daily challenges.The project involved 3 European countries, Italy, Portugal and Romania with associations that have diversified experience in the third sector, thanks to which we were able to achieve the realization of the three intellectual outputs. Those are Cooperativa 3P from Palermo, AMS from Palermo, Desinccop from Guimaraes, Filantropia from Bucharest. Specifically, we carried out a ""Literature review of scientific findings on the impact of life skills in social workers in daily work and in field of learning needs""; Guidelines for managing training sessions on life skills addressed to social workers; Interactive online platform for the exchange of methods and interventions between social operators who have implemented the FOCUS model in order to be transferred also to those who want to approach it.At the same time there were three transnational meetings, one for each partner country that allowed to agree on shared tools and strategies for the implementation of the individual activities and three multiplier events, also one for each country, for the dissemination of the results.Transversal to all this were the activities of management and monitoring of the activities but also a dissemination and communication plan that guaranteed good media coverage able to correctly reach the beneficiary and interested parties from other countries, and not directly involved in the project. A website with an attached online platform has been activated at www.project-focus.eu, a Facebook page and an Instagram profile, a mailing list for sending newsletters. For each event, each partner organization has disseminated it through its channels, websites and social media where present."

The TAG project is carried out by an international and multispectral partnership of seven partners from Romania, Spain, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and France. This partnership was formed from the strong beliefs of partner organisations that education of older adults is of European relevance because it deals with an undeniable fact all around Europe: the population is aging but is not getting involved in LLL at a due pace or rate. In a rapidly changing world, older adults are forced into new and challenging environments which require new skills and attitudes which can only be gained through education and training. Despite the many efforts made by EU institutions to promote lifelong learning, there still exists a large share of the population, namely older adults, which is back behind. In this sense, adult education is of great importance to encourage the elder to be more active and participative in social and civic spheres. It is also of a remarkable relevance for adult educators to know their learners, their characteristics, needs, emotions, social position, style of learning, etc. Knowing what topics or issues are of their interest will be crucial towards engaging them in learning processes. It is well known that human nature tends to feel identified with communities and groups of people. We all tend to feel represented by a community and its culture; our values, beliefs and the manners in which we relate and interact with other define by the culture of our societies. Culture is an extensively wide concept in meaning, embedding an endless variety of areas: language, music, literature, religion, gastronomy… However, within this long list of cultural fields, gender tends to be forgotten. Gender issues are an integral part of our culture: people of a community, the way men and women understand gender and interact, their roles in the society… Hence, partners have seen the opportunity to take the advantage of gender issues as a triggering point and an untapping tool for the elder motivation to understand EU past, history and common values. If they find an interesting and shared reason for learning - that is understanding the role of important women throughout history - older people will be more engaged in LLL and active in their social circles. The project will use all this cultural background and legacy as a motor for both the professional competences development of adult educators and the boosting of older adults’ motivation to actively participate in LLL activities To address such issues, TAG partners have established the following objectives: - to enhance educators’ professional competences to work with older learners with the aim of motivating them to take a more active part in their communities and LLL activities; - to create safe learning spaces for older people taking the advantage of gender issues as a motivational trigger; - to raise awareness about belittled and invisible women by collecting stories of nationally outstanding female intellectuals and artists from the 20th century having a European dimension;- to generalise the understanding of gender issues through history as EU common values and community cultural heritage;- to create synergies among relevant actors in the educational and cultural fields and entities working with the elder. To achieve such objectives, partners will develop four main intellectual outputs: 1. Handbook-conceptual background: history of belittled and invisible women as a trigger for better understanding common EU values and promoting active participation of older people in LLL.2. Blended Course targeting Adult Educators: ICT Tools for Older Men and Women. 3. Interactive EU Map «The making of a woman through history” created by working groups of older learners.4. Digital Stories elaborated through Collaborative Storytelling with working groups of older learners.TAG project will target directly: · Adult educators: social workers, teachers, mentors, professors, etc.· Older learners, adults aged 55+ · Staff working in adult education contexts -formal, non-formal or informal organisations.Indirectly, the project will target other stakeholders, namely educational centers and organisations working in the field of adult education; public bodies active in the field, policy makers in the field of education and social and civic participation (public bodies staff, managers and heads of departments, etc.)A transversal approach to address such issues in cooperation among educational institutions and public bodies working with the elderly is essential to ensure the creation of safe and comfortable learning paths and boost their motivation and active participation in social and civic life. Similarly, the international and EU approach will guarantee that all target groups around Europe who are currently facing the above-mentioned challenges will benefit from project results and outcomes in the short and long term.

The ITER (Improving Transitions - Enabling Results) Project. NEET is a pan-European challenge; 14.3% of Young People (YP) aged 16-24 in the EU (5.3million) are NEET; (Eurostat 2018) the aims and objectives of the ITER project are directly linked to EU Youth Strategy (2019 - 2027) core priorities to fight the social exclusion and poverty affecting large numbers of YP in Europe. NEET YP across Europe are at serious risk of poverty and social exclusion; the ITER Project will contribute to opportunities and resources necessary for NEET YP to participate fully in economic, social and cultural life. The ITER project is designed to improve methods to engage NEET YP in identifying their needs and barriers to mainstream vocational education, empower them to co-design and implement their personal action plan to address their needs and barriers across 4 ‘Zones’: Learning, Life, Leisure and work, building in the customised assistance needed to support their transition from NEET to mainstream VET and support them & their receiving VET College with a transitions action plan which sets out the YP's support needs and agreed plan that prepares them for transition, supports them during transition and offers support to the VET organisation. The ITER project will focus on developing, testing and implementing innovative approaches and practices for study programmes, learners, staff and organisations; ITER is a partnership of 9 organisations/institutions representing 5 European Countries: UK, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Hungary. The partnership has the optimum skills, knowledge, experience and expertise that will be applied to develop and test innovative approaches and practices which support YP aged 16-24 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) to successfully make the transition from intensive support programmes/specialist NEET provision to mainstream Vocational Education and Training (VET Partners involved in the ITER project are:Antares (IT) ; Békés County Government Office (HU) Desincoop (PT) Eulab (IT) Extern (UK) GEMS (UK) lead partner, Polytechnic University of Bucharest (RO) Time (UK) University of Huddersfield (UK) The ITER project has been developed and designed to build on the innovative approaches of two previous Erasmus+ projects EC-YP (Extended Choices for Young People in VET) and DayPlot ) Diagnosis and Actions for Young People Looking for a Better Future) The ITER project will consolidate and improve the EC-YP collaborative mentoring model with specific emphasis on developing an improved initial point of entry NEET needs and barriers diagnostic and developing guidelines and practical solutions to improve the transitions of YP who are NEET to mainstream VET; the ITER project will develop a web-based platform and interface/dashboard using the DayPlot gamification methodology to encourage the engagement of NEET YP in the initial assessment, action planning and transitions readiness stages of their customised assistance and support their transitions to mainstream VET reducing dropout/withdrawal and increasing completion/qualifications rates for previously-NEET students/trainees. The ITER project combines the development of an innovative model, piloting it in UK, Italy, Portugal and Romania with 60 YP and 12 IAG Practitioners/Mentors, and impact analysis to measure the pilot outcomes at regional/national level. The ITER project will be realised through the delivery of 5 Intellectual outputs each led by the designated IO lead and supported through a project management and implementation framework based on PRINCE2 IOs are: IO1NEET isn't Neat - Challenges and Opportunities & lessons for policy & Practice Result: Comparative Analysis, Presentation of Findings of the measures that have been introduced at national level in the UK, Italy, Romania, Portugal and Hungary in relation to the NEET challenge & the identification of good practice models . IO2The ITER Platform Result: online YP friendly and exciting interactive platform adapting gamification methodology to support initial needs and barriers assessment, action planning, review and transitions management support IO3 The ITER Handbook: Bridging the Transitions Points between customised assistance for NEET YP and Mainstream VET Result: A handbook with practical support and guidelines for partnership working to improve transitions.IO4 Pilot Testing the ITER Model - Pilot Study Report Result: analysis of the pilot testing of ITER involving 60 YP and 12 IAG practitioners/Mentors in 4 European countries. Potential longer-term benefits are A tried and tested innovative approach and model which creates meaningful VET pathways for NEET young people who experience complex barriers to participation in VET; Open Source access to ITER platform and increased social inclusion through Enhancing access to training and qualifications for all & increasing the quality in VET through feedback loops to adapt VET provision.