"""Deepening democracy! - a strategy for improving the quality of democracy in school context"" is a project of 24 months duration coordinated by YUPI organization in Famalicão, Portugal, in close partnership with other portuguese partner (Agrupamento de Escolas Camilo Castelo Branco), Poland (EPI and Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace w Kielcach) and Romania (Asociatia feedback PM-Brasov and Colegiul National de Informatica Grigore Moisil), for a total number of 1700 young pupils and more then 140 youth workers and teachers in the 3 European countries involved (140 teachers and youth workers and over 60 students will have the chance to engage in international learning experiences). The partners are schools and non governmental organizations already experienced in working in close cooperation for a better integrated system of education for young people, combining formal and non formal learning. ""Deepening democracy!"" aims at contributing to the recognition of the importance of cooperation between non formal and formal education systems in order to offer the young pupils a more integrated education and allow more adequate strategies to integrate young people in the society. The partners are coming from disadvantaged areas of their countries, where geographical, social and economic obstacles are conditioning the development of young people and the mobility experience for learning, especially for young girls. The two topics chosen by the partners for the local activities in close cooperation between the non formal and formal sectors are 1) method of sociocracy for a more engaged decision-making in schools; 2) Sustainable development goals for a more sustainable strategy of the school. These topics are channels on how to involve young pupils in activities supported by youth workers and teachers inside classrooms and schools.Our main goal is to create an international network of partners interested and cooperating for the recognition of combining non formal and formal educational for a more comprehensive education alternative for young pupils, therefore contributing for a better development of the local community. We act at different levels to achieve this goal: local activities under the topics, coordinators meetings, staff training events for youth workers and teachers and short term exchanges of groups of pupils and multiplier events at every country involved in order to disseminate the outcomes and output presentations, as well as the 2 intellectual outputs developed, reaching a higher number of local partners interested in mainstreaming the tools.The outputs created during the implementation and closing stage of this project are: a Guide on Sociocracy with results of the research on in each school on how decision-making is happening and what can be done for improving the quality of democracy and an Educational game on Sustainable Development Goals created in collaboration between teachers, students and youth workers to inform and explore the strategy of SDG's in a more youth friendly and interactive way. All these tools will allow the improvement of quality of practices from all professionals involved and also contribute to the sustainability of this project after the funding ends and the dissemination of results towards other interested partners."

Job opportunities are frequently marked by the presence of gender-biased descriptions concerning the characteristics of the desired applicants. Consciously or unconsciously the wording adopted by recruiters can often be tainted with terms that are culturally more associated with male or the female gender, and for this reason, lead to self-selection bias from the potential applicants. Whereas the employability and the job opportunities accessible to women have been in the public concern and debate for years, the matter of gender bias in job descriptions is a problem does not affect only women. In the minds of both recruiters and applicants, the association of a given gender to some professions is still very common, therefore limiting the attractiveness upfront of some opportunities for many. Moreover, these challenges are bidirectional in the sense that they are imposed on both future candidates and employers and/or HR managers. At times, simply the way in which an advert for a job vacancy is showcased may, unwillingly to the one who creates it, makes it so that, for example, more people from the male gender apply despite the qualifications required. By the same token, throughout the recruitment process, many of such biases persist, leading to uncomfortable, and often unfair job interviews and again obstructing inclusive access to job opportunities. This project aims to contribute to the reduction of gender bias in communication processes in the job market, notably in the development of job offers, and cv from potential job applicants. To this end, it sets up to develop tools to raise the awareness about the existing bias in such contexts, as well as to offer guidelines and tools to support employers and job applicants for the conduction of more equitable recruitment practices. The tools, methodologies, and materials produced during the execution of this project aim to contribute to the qualification of that job applicants and employers, in order to be better prepared to identify gender bias related to the job market so that they are then able to minimise the impact of such bias in a future job opportunity. The products of this project will contribute to reaching the priorities of social inclusion by promoting gender equality in job access.

"The project ""Youth Information Centers fit to NEET"" bring together partners from Macedonia, Croatia and Poland to work on innovative approach in identifying role model for youth information to fit to the needs of people in NEET situation. Learning of the experiences of different European countries undertaken acctivities within this project were crucial in delivering the innovative outputs of this project. The overall aim of the project was to Increase quality of youth work in addressing needs of NEETs in Europe. Through the project partners strived to achieve the specific objective of the project to: Introduce innovative tailored youth information approach for active inclusion of NEETs in the society. The innovative approach encouraged and supported high quality guidance including career information, information on rights at work, employment and education prospects, free movement possibilities and more comprehensive advice and support for all young people, especially for those at risk of getting into a NEET situation. Another innovative aspect offered through this project was utilizing ITC technologies in disseminating methodology for working with youth in NEET situation, for youth workers in Europe, therefore contributing towards increasing the quality of the youth work. In order to achieve this trough the project we have developed and implemented a methodology for ToT webinar, thus offering opportunity to youth workers from all around Europe to join the training and increase their knowledge and skills in working with NEETs and especially in the field of youth information and career guidance. Since the project includes partner organizations of three programme countries Macedonia, Luxembourg and Poland, the first impact was in these countries, and in particular at a regional level, where the partners are more present and develop their work. Desired impact at local level was to have more active young people and incisive development process of new approaches, to strengthen the capacity of youth information workers and to improve access to information for youth in NEET situation through piloting new innovative and individually tailored approach of youth information in Macedonia, Croatia and Poland. At regional level project impact was on identified and addressed needs of young people in NEET situation for their active involvement in the society. At national level the project impact on improved collaboration and communication between young people, youth workers and informative representatives of national institutions working in the field of youth in NEET situation; Practical implementation of new innovative tools in youth information services fit to the needs of NEETs and Decreasing the rate of youth unemployment. At European level Improved access to information for youth in NEET situation through piloting new innovative and individually tailored approach of youth information in Europe; Youth workers in Europe trough the IO2 were equipped with knowledge and skills, through specific methodology for youth information and high quality guidance including career information and Decreased rate of youth in NEET situation in Europe as a long term impact of this project."

"Young people are the key to the future of Europe and represent a huge potential for innovation in the labor market leading to an improvement in Europe’s competitiveness and, thus, economic recovery. It is in the young generation that we find the ‘digital natives’ who approach digital technologies without deference, and who have a keen sense for the new opportunities provided by these technologies. In 2018, more than 5.5 million young people (15-24 years) were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) in EU and there were 11% of early school leavers. According to Eurostat, Young people neither in employment nor in education and training aged 15-29, total unemployment rate in Macedonia for 2015 is 32.5%, compared Poland 14.6% and EU28 14.8%. As a result, political attention has increasingly been focused on boosting the employment of young people in Macedonia through a combination of employment, education and social assistance policies. Promoting youth entrepreneurship is one response to the challenges portrayed above. The policy rationale for attaching high hopes to such efforts is that if young people can be empowered to take charge of their own lives and careers, and if they can change their attitude towards initiative and learn how to seize opportunities. National governments have launched considerable efforts to pursue the objective of promoting entrepreneurship among young people, and initiatives to boost youth entrepreneurship are given a significant role in supporting the main goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for growths and jobs.These initiatives have mainly focused on strengthening the capacity of formal education systems to provide pupils and students with entrepreneurial and innovative skills, attitudes and values. There is a growing realization that entrepreneurial attitudes and values are often achieved outside the formal education system through youth work (including self-organised projects by young people). In this sense, youth work presents itself as a promising opportunity for combining traditional approaches to the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship with work targeting disadvantaged groups of young people and aiming at social activation and inclusion. Youth work appears to offer untapped potentials for developing the resources of NEETs through activities conducted by youth workers in a supportive setting. The needs of youth workers on the other side is crucial to understand how digitization is shaping the societies, including its impact on youth work and on young people. Youth workers needs to be able to take young people's digital cultures into account in youth work practices. The project ""DYOUTH Expedition"" will bring together consortium consisted of partners from Macedonia and Poland that will work on enhancing the quality of digital youth work in prevention of NEET among youth through exchange of best practices for combining both offline and online methods in entrepreneurial learning. The overall aim of the project is to: Increase quality of digital youth work in empowering youth to become active citizens in the society. Through the project partners will strive to achieve the specific objective of the project to: Exchange of best practices through producing e-learning toolkit for enhancing entrepreneurship among youth as a sustainable and valuable tool for prevention of social exclusion of youth. From one side the project involves national network of youth organizations with significant experience in promotion of entrepreneurship in Macedonia, while on the other hand we have organization from Poland which mission is to promote and practice education through internet. Both partners committed to share their experiences and best practices in their field of expertise in order to develop useful product for youth workers that will provide methodology for implementing workshops in entrepreneurship with combining offline and online methods, thus promoting use of digital youth work and ITC. Project foresees LTTA that will gather youth workers from Macedonia and Poland that will learn form the best practices and experiences of their colleagues from both countries. This activity will contribute in developing feasible and realistic youth work services to young people especially those endangered of becoming NEETs. The impact of this training will be well creation and piloting of new e-learning tool DYOUTH expedition for youth workers in order to and provide high quality youth work services to the young people in NEET situation. 140 local youth from Poland and Macedonia will attend workshops in entrepreneurship.The E-Learning Toolkit for enhancing entrepreneurship among youth will contribute in enhancing the sustainability of the youth organizations involved, and will be disseminated to over 5000 youth workers in Europe."

MAIN AIM/PRIORITY OF THE PROJECTMost relevant priority of this project is to promote engaging, more inclusive education and social entrepreneurship among young people by empowering them through innovative and integrated approaches in order to take responsibility for the community they live in . All project activities are cross-sectoral ( school, municipality, local entrepreneurs) and are building grass-root approach. Main aim as well as commission of this project is to include, engage and empower as much young people into the region/community they live in as possible and to prevent brain drain and high youth unemployment rate in rural areas. Thanks to this project, the empowerment of youth will be done by high quality and innovative activities – such us international trainings, local internships , job shadowing & personal expertise developments, which will lead into youth engagement (and empowerment) in a form of specific socially innovative projects implemented in the region/community they live in. All activities will be done in a both - formal and no-formal ways, as well as by using online (virtual training course with certified EU project managers) and offline (social business, green economy & start-ups trainings) tools and methods. Associated partners (schools and NGOS) will provide necessary environment for implementation of school participatory budget, so that the students will be able thanks to gained expertise apply for a municipality participatory grant. Thanks to this project, the students will engage to the community also at the municipality level.The participants will not only gain valuable know-how regarding green economy and project development, but thanks to the participation at municipality/community level they will gain also skills including public speaking, negotiation, facilitation, confidence, communication skills, and leadership.INITIAL SITUATIONThis project is an upgraded and more innovative version of a previous project PlaNET SOEN2, which had been awarded by Iuventa and Slovak Ministry of Education as the best cross-sectoral project for the year 2019. We decided to continue with the activities in our region, because the demand and need of continuous youth work in the region is still very acute, as none of the municipalities do have a sustainable plans on how to prevent brain-drain and high youth unemployment rate. In this upgraded version we have new partners and we put more attention into fostering the development of social and civic competences at the high school and municipality level and our priority is also to reduce disparities in access and use of digital technologies by mixing non-formal and formal learning education in online training courses. We expect that these new approaches will support the dynamics of school life and community life and promote more responsible and caring autonomous youth, exercising permanently their citizenship in a nurturing and creative environment.PROJECT OUTPUTS& IMPACTAre following:NETWORKS & PARTNERSHIPS & VIRTUAL PLATFORMS1 x international network and partnership4 x official partnership between PPs and schools & NGOs4 x sustainable networks of local entrepreneurs & local small municipalities1 x web page1 x social media pageMEETINGS & TRAININGS & INTERNSHIPS & JOBSHADOWINGS3 x transnational meetings (1xkick-off meeting, 1xmidterm meeting, 1xfinal meeting)2 x transnational trainings ( 1x training about school participatory budget & social innovative project development, 1 x training about start-ups & green economy projects)6 x virtual online trainings ( 3x training about school participatory budget & social innovative project development, 3 x training about start-ups & green economy projects)20 x local trainings about project budgeting -SPB( 5xtrainings in each PP country)up to 20 x local trainings about project innovations & green economy ( 3xtrainings in each PP country)up to 20 x local internships/trainings ( 5xinternships/trainings in each PP country)4 X international job shadowing’s8 x multiplier events (2x conference)INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS1 x online training about SPB and MPB1 x interactive workshop/trainig material about social innovations, start-ups and green economy1x municipality participatory budget (MPB) toolkitPARTICIPANTSAt least 40 x trained young people – project development, social innovations, green economy & start-ups4 x trained teacher – in school & municipality budget implementation principles4 x trained youth workers– in school & municipality budget implementation principles4 x schools implementing SPB4 x youth NGOs educated in project development & SPB4x local municipalities included in the projectOTHERS4 x social entrepreneurship business ideas models10 x newsletters1 x communication manual1 x project evaluation plan10 x press releases2 x video20 x monthly reports from each partner8 x project ideas (for school participatory budget and municipality participatory budget)