Culture, Creativity, Inclusion

Start: 01-05-2021 - End: 30-04-2023
Project Reference: 2020-1-IT02-KA227-SCH-094804
EU Grant: 155850 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Partnerships for Creativity

Project Summary

In initiating the project “Culture, Creativity, Inclusion”, the institutions from Italy, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Latvia, schools and NGOs involved in intercultural education, started from the social and educational value of culture; the existence in their regions of similar contexts: multicultural students groups with discriminatory tendencies; their needs in intercultural education as a strategy for social inclusion, for reducing marginalization and to diversify the Curriculum; needs for non-formal education strategies to replace classical teaching based only on the transmission of knowledge, to create a positive working atmosphere, attractive lessons, and ICT resources; a rich national cultural heritage used as a support for intercultural education. Their strategic objectives are the orientation towards innovative, and attractive European didactics.

The aim of the project is to increase interculturality, creativity, and innovation in the practices of partner institutions, to develop skills through culture and creativity.

Project objectives for teachers as the main target group and for partner institutions:

• 1. To offer the acquisition of innovative and motivating strategies for the social inclusion of students, using as support the national and European cultural and artistic elements.
• 2. To provide the acquisition of types of non-formal intercultural education activities, through the exchange of good practices between partners, during LTTAs.
• 3. To offer the possibility to create, through collaboration, efficient digital resources in learning about European cultural diversity and the appreciation of the common European values;
• 4. To offer partner institutions their professional development, promote attractive non-formal teaching, and support schools in their regions with European digital educational resources.

The project's methodology consists of 6 LTTAs that each involves 20 teachers from partner institutions and 6-10 teachers from the host institution, and is based on innovative approaches: theoretical presentations and examples about the educational value of culture; cultural workshops; non-formal approach to a UNESCO monument; cultural theatre and creative workshops starting from works of art and cultural elements in the UNESCO Heritage; examples of involving students in cultural activities and promoting traditional elements: music, food culture, old occupations, handicrafts, folk dance; cultural ICT workshop using the media with a cultural message, to create certain types of videos and the "Digital Photo Story" as a final product.

Students will only be involved in Virtual Exchanges with partner students and in local activities included in LTTA in their schools; they will be presenters of cultural elements, actors in theater and cultural workshops, promoters of their cultural values.

Expected results through LTTAs: the acquisition of information on classroom management for inclusive education, good practices in encouraging the students ’integration; non-formal strategies and valuable multimedia resources for learning interculturality and developing students' creativity; types of cultural and ICT creative workshops; learning experiences to develop intercultural skills; educational practices using as support the national material and immaterial cultural elements of the UNESCO heritage and the traditional elements; ICT creative skills based on the cultural elements; "Digital Photo-Story", the final project product; creating E-twinning Space and the project website as tools for promoting and disseminating results.

Expected results through the students' participation: superior intercultural competencies, respect, and tolerance for other cultures; new motivations to get involved in the group's life: more oriented towards group knowledge, discovering common and different cultural aspects, an improved position towards the group culture.

The project impact on teachers illustrated by their future professional behaviors: the use of a wide range of innovative approaches; integration in their activities of the digital resources acquired through the project, especially of Digital Photo-Story, a valuable product in intercultural teaching, in the process of social inclusion; new professional skills in organizing non-formal activities, using as support the cultural elements and capitalizing on students' creativity; new ICT skills and the interest in their integrating into lessons.

Impact indicators on students: more tolerant behaviors towards students of different ethnicities and living environments; new intercultural competences: more tolerant in the interaction with students of other cultures; more eager to get involved in national cultural projects and Erasmus +.

The project sustainability can be ensured by developing new projects using at a higher level the results obtained, by integrating the results in the didactics and the Curriculum through new optional courses of intercultural education.

Target Group of the Project:

Coordinator:

• IISS Jacopo del Duca - Diego Bianca Amato - Italy

Partners:

ASOCIATIA EDUPURTUS - Romania
• Rigas 80 vidusskola - Latvia
• SEPUGS "Vasil Antevski Dren" - Republic of North Macedonia
• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - Greece
• Özel Antalya Vizyon Koleji Anadolu Lisesi - Turkey

INSPIRING CREATIVITY FOR CREATIVE EUROPE

Start: 01-06-2021 - End: 31-05-2023
Project Reference: 2020-1-TR01-KA227-ADU-098179
EU Grant: 116931 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Partnerships for Creativity

Project Summary

Cultural and creative sectors (CCS) are all sectors whose activities are based on cultural values and/or artistic and other creative expressions which include architecture, archives, libraries and museums, artistic crafts, audiovisual (including film, television, video games ,product design, fashion and multimedia), tangible and intangible cultural heritage, design, festivals, music, literature, performing arts, publishing, radio and visual arts. Undoubtedly the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) play an important role not only for the European economy but also as part of a wider cultural and historical understanding of the European development.

The creative industries frequently require a combination of highly specialized knowledge combined with transferable, generic skills. The demand for skilled creative workers is strong and rapidly evolving, both in cultural and creative sectors and other sectors of the economy. And there is a big challenge is related to the mismatch between the skills needed by employers and self-employed creatives and the skills provided by education and training providers.

The project aims to create a sustainable and efficient education program for low skilled adult learners involved in the creative industries and it addresses a gap in cultural and creative industries where there is low emphasis on the use of new digital technologies, creating and design skills, marketing skills and support skills. In our Project we mainly focus on the skills of cultural industries (film making, multimedia, book press publishing),skills of creative industries and activities such as fashion, graphic, social media and product design; and advertising; and ICT.

The target group of the Project;

• - unemployed/newly graduated adults
• - unemployed adults who lost their jobs in covid-19 pandemic situation
• - low skilled adults in creative industries
• - freelance creative workers

The objectives of the Project;

• - Develop skills and competences of adults who aim to improve their chances of employment or performing better in their current employment for future working and employability,
• - Strengthen local, national and international collaboration and innovation in arts, cultural and creative learning
• - To improve the achievement and recognition of creative skills through by e-assessment for adult education
• - To enhance collaboration between education providers, universities, cultural organisations, SMEs in creative sector, civil society SMEs in creative sector, civil society organizations, creative workers and volunteers
• - To design, develop and deliver a Creative Skillset MOOC to give the adults opportunity of having distance learning especially Covid-19 pandemic situation
• - To provide added value in employability and local development through supporting the creative economy

In short term results;it will mainly adress the skills needs of Cultural-creative sectors and develop the training models,In long term results; it will maximize the impact of cultural and creative industries in local development and employment.The creative economy relies on creative talent as the primary source of value. The demand for skilled creative workers is strong and rapidly evolving, both in cultural and creative sectors and other sectors of the economy.

Our project will also provide training and development activity to offer a solution to skills gaps or recruitment difficulties and to reap these job creation benefits.The adults/unemployed adults/creative workser will have opportunity to gain skills and competences in creative sectors,to be employed or develop their works.Although the ones who stayed at home during the covid19 pandemic ,will have chance to have training,develop their creativity and have experience in creative works. The project will produce tangible and intangible results to contribute develop creative skills in recovering unemployment.

Target Group of the Project:

Coordinator:

• Recep Tayyip Erdogan Universitesi - Turkey

Partners:

Association Hexagonale de l'Innovation Sociale et de l'Education - Italy
• METANU REKLAM ORGANİZASYON DANIŞMANLIK VE TİCARET LİMİTED ŞİRKETİ - Turkey
• Asociación para la promoción del empleo y la cohesión social "Asociación Creativa" - Spain
• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - Greece

Creativity tools to empower NEET´s on entrepreneurship

Start: 01-05-2021 - End: 30-04-2023
Project Reference: 2020-1-IT03-KA227-YOU-020559
EU Grant: 61760 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Partnerships for Creativity

Project Summary

Non-formal education and learning has an important role to play in responding to youth unemployment. This is because it supports development by helping to transform young peoples’ potential, creativity, talents, initiative and social responsibility, through the acquisition of related knowledge, skills, attitudes and values.

The purpose of youth workers is not to provide jobs but engagement in the wide variety of personal and social development activities that it offers, helps young people to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are frequently said to be needed in the labour market.

In this way youth work contributes to closing the gap between the competences acquired by NEET´s and the needs of the labour market.

The COVID-19 crisis has turned from a global health crisis into a severe economic crisis. The policy responses taken to fight the pandemic have resulted in economic shutdown, leaving millions out of work, with young people, women and less-skilled people worst affected. That is why, this project responds to reality and offers the necessary creativity tools to our NEET to be able to find alternatives for employment and a good way to the development of necessary creaticity skills for life, either professionally or personally, and giving tangible options to develop projects that allow NEET to launch their business idea.

This Erasmus project aims to exchange good practice between partners and train youth workers to support, motivate and address better to NEETs’ needs, namely: the need to break the cycle of isolation/social exclusion; lack of motivation to become an active entrepreneur; lack of self-awareness of their passions/talents and, even, the low self-esteem and lack of key-skills that are required to take an initiative to create their own business. Therefore, the objectives of the project are:

Main objectives:

• To introduce the concept and potential benefits of social entrepreneurship to youths facing social exclusion due to low skills and unemployment (NEETs).
• To map and collect information on NEETs situation along with examples of best practices of young entrepreneurs to create a Ebook.
• To promote the exchange of good practices among partners on social entrepreneurship , strengthening cross-cooperation and a multidisciplinary approach.
• To professionalize and competence development of youth workers, supporting the acquisition of skills through non-formal and informal educational, to train and guidance NEETs with regard to the necessary skills NEET need in order to compete effectively in the business environment.
• To support labour market inclusion of European youth not in employment, education or training (NEETs) through a training path that gives knowledge and new creativity entrepreneurial skills.
• To provide entities with creativity tools and methods to involve NEET´s on social entrepreneurship.
• To foster quality improvements in youth work, in particular through enhanced cooperation between entities in the youth field and other stakeholders.
• To raising awareness and motivate the NEETs about entrepreneurship through local awareness activities.

Target group:

• - Entities
• - Youth workers
• - (NEET) youths

Activities:

• 4 transnational Project meetings
• 1 Short staff training course C1
• 5 Workshops focus on NEET and entrepreneurship
• 1 Ebook of good practice young entrepreneurs
• 5 Local campaign for dissemination and awareness.

Target Group of the Project:

Coordinator:

• COMUNE DI POLPENAZZE DEL GARDA - Italy

Partners:

• Educator, spolek - Czechia
• Asociación USIT - Spain
• Arte e Cultura Sociale - Italy
• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - Greece

Paths of Inclusion in Youth Employability

Start: 01-03-2020 - End: 28-02-2022
Project Reference: 2019-3-EL02-KA105-005354
EU Grant: 38330 EUR
Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Learning Mobility of Individuals
Action Type: Youth mobility

Project Summary

With this project, we plan to boost employability across Europe and help young people enter the market more easily. In a Europe where million of people suffer from unemployment and on the other side million of job vacancies in multiple industries, it is very important to equip our youth with the ability to search for a job, apply to the most suitable one for them and successfully enter the market. Our training, courses and activities are destined to direct correctly youth workers and leaders in order to become more efficient in their daily work and bring innovation to their own projects.

Overall, our objectives can be described as following:

• Enhance participants’ competences on career guidance, counseling, orientation, and coaching with practical tools.
• Explore and map platforms, portals, strategies and websites for European job opportunities and the ways to use them to enhance active job search of young people.
• Develop a network of youth workers and leaders among European Union promote best practices, challenges, ideas, obstacles and policies related with youth employability in Europe.
• Share and create efficient and creative models for CV creation and undertaking of job interviews.
• Empower the role of the Erasmus + and Non Formal Education as tools to boost the employability and labor market awareness of youngsters in European Union and not only.

Activities

We have planned a variety of activities and we mention them below with further details:

• Day 1: DURING THE DAY- Arrival of participants and ice breakers to create a friendly atmosphere. Presentation of the training course EVENING - Welcome Evening.
• Day 2:MORNING - Presentation of the project, staff and program. Expectations, Fears and Contribution. Feedback by the trainers and setting up of ground rules. Team building activities, such as "crossing the river". Debriefing by the trainers. AFTERNOON - Formal, non-formal and informal education,features and differences, uses for personal and professional development. Youthpass: work on the key competences in groups. Presentation,feedback, and discussion on other certification methods and best practices for recognition of NFE. Daily Reflection EVENING - NGO Fair,presentations and time for networking.
• Day 3: MORNING - Employment and employability: group work, definition and presentations with creative methods (art, collage, drawing). Points of view of most relevant European institutions and agencies from the trainers. Presentation of top Soft Skills for the labor market (Communication; Time Management; Languages; etc.) with creative, interactive methods (simulations, games, role plays).Discussion on recognition and support young people in succeeding in this. AFTERNOON - Myths and false beliefs in different societies about “good”and “decent” jobs. Self Reflection, then "Fishbowl" discussion. Presentation by trainers identifying common beliefs and ways for youth to overcome them. How to reach our goals. Practical examples, working of participants on their own and in pairs, finding together new paths. Debriefing and feedback, models for goal setting, monitoring, and motivational tools. EVENING – Intercultural evening: creative presentation of each country (music,quiz, games).
• Day 4: MORNING - Local realities on youth unemployment, statistics, facts, policies and strategies. Preparation and presentations by national groups. We will collect the results of this session to produce an online publication. AFTERNOON - Unemployment in Europe. Quiz to discover more about the European Labor Market. Websites to show statistics and facts, and tools for active job search in Europe. Programs and EU strategies for employability (EyE, Eures, Ploteus, Vet mobility, Europe 2020, Youth Guarantee, New Skills for New Jobs, Youth Employment Initiative, etc.) Daily Reflection EVENING – Mid-Term Evaluation
• Day 5: MORNING - Visit to the municipality Round table on policies for youth employability and presentation of best practices. Q&A session. Visit to Meteora a monument of UNESCO World Heritage that will be visited from the group of participants in order to promote interculturalism among participating countries and also to provide information about Greek culture.AFTERNOON - CV building, tips and tricks, differences in Europe, presentation of formats and creative examples. Practical work on alternative CVs (video; ppt; artistic; Linkedin) Daily reflection EVENING - Movie night on employment and discussion.
• Day 6: MORNING – Do's and Dont 's for Job Interviews. Working in groups. Summarizing and feedback by trainers. External Speakers: economist and entrepreneur. Another perspective on selecting candidates. AFTERNOON - Job Interview Simulation., preparation and implementation with the guests. Comments from the group and from the experts, suggestions and tips. Daily reflection EVENING - World Cafè to discuss topics of interest.
• Day 7: MORNING - Presentation of Erasmus plus, focusing on the youth chapter. Video examples. Q&A. Working in groups for designing of new projects' ideas. Presentations and feedback by trainers. AFTERNOON - Discussion and preparation of dissemination of results. Youthpass finalization, singularly and in groups. EVENING - Farewell party. The day after, we'll have the final evaluation, closing ceremony, and departures of participants. We have include a variety of countries in the project, as we want to "internationalize" its impact and promote conversation and further cooperation. Our participants will be youth workers and leaders whose their everyday work include young people's employability problems and common challenges, like create a good CV, be ready for an interview and find a decent job. They will be over 18 years old and will already have an experience on how to deal with young people in need. Every partner country, after taking into consideration the aforementioned criteria, will select from its candidates the most suitable and promised ones.

With all these said, the number of participants of every country will be as following:

• Greece: 3 participants
• Turkey: 3 participants
• Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 3 participants
• Romania: 3 participants
• Iceland: 3 participants
• Netherlands: 3 participants
• Spain: 3 participants
• Italy: 3 participants
• Sweden: 3 participants

Impact

First of all, we foresee to make our participants better on dealing with unemployment of young people. This is our primary goal, as crushing unemployment is the main aim of this project. The participants will develop their professional as well as their personal profile, expand their knowledge, acquire new and innovative ideas to implement in their daily work and learn how to better approach young people in need and become their mentors in their way to stabilize their life and find a job that keeps them satisfied.

Secondly, we foresee to develop the partner organizations and improve their work and their fame in the field of combating unemployment. The participants involved will become great assets for the partners and will definitely bring value to them. New projects will be implemented and new ideas will be developed. Also, our partners will make new contacts across Europe and will discuss new collaborations in the field of Erasmus + and beyond. All these, make an important opportunity for the partner organizations that wouldn't have the chance to grab it alternatively.

Thirdly, young people that are in need will, also, get benefited. Those people that are finding it difficult to get a job and they get challenges everyday, need help in order to effectively focus in their goal and bring their fears to an end. After the project, participants will be more equipped and ready provide any kind of support to young people and guide them to this path of job hunting. Through all the activities and the dissemination planned, we aim to make a small but important change in the field of young unemployment and bring our societies a step forward.

Target Group of the Project:

Coordinator:

• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - Greece

Partners:

• ASOCIATIA PENTRU DEZVOLTARE SI CULTURA MURES - Romania
• ASOCIACION CULTURAL Y DEPORTIVA LAHOYA - Spain
• SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATION CENTER SKOPJE - North Macedonia
• FOXPOPULI - Sweden
• MEZITLI ILCE TARIM VE ORMAN MUDURLUGU - Turkey
• CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE DELL'EDUCAZIONE E LO SVILUPPO ASSOCIAZIONE - Italy
• Stichting Drawing to Health - Netherlands
• KREFJANDI FELAG UM RANNSOKNA OG NYSKOPUNARSAMSTARF - Iceland