"While organisations primiraly focus on profit, sustainable organizations are committed to measuring and making key decisions based on measures that look after the profit, the planet and the people. These represent the three pillars the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework is based on, a sustainability business model suitable for every organization, regardless of its size. It is a feeder road to a highway called ""sustainable growth"".UseWine aimed at increasing the sustainability outlook of European Wine SMEs by guiding them through their first crucial move: the adoption of the TBL model. TBL is not widely known within SMEs, and those who have heard of it, consider it as an unfeasible model for the small size of their organisation. The fact that ""the planet"" and ""the people"" are part of the sustainability equation creates negative attitude since both are considered to lead to additional expenditures. The project aimed at:- guiding Wine SMEs in establishing a sustainability strategy that will cover financial, environmental and social elements- fostering a TBL culture in Wine entrepreneurship- creating common strategy among the Wine SMEs, the local authorities and the social and environmental stakeholders applied through policies which support TBL- developing leaders among the Wine SMEs who will manage the TBL change - establishing performance indicators to measure the penetration of TBL principles in Wine entrepreneurshipUseWine's consortium comprised of ten organisation from 8 different countries. The organisations involved have had the competencies or relations to the target groups in order to have fast access to them. One of the partners (ETA from the UK) has been offering consultancy services to SMEs using TBL on a professional level.The project was launched by assessing the current TBL related practices applied by the Wine SMEs, the existing TBL related policies and regulations in enforcement by the policy makers (local governments/regional authorities) and how the citizens (social and environmental groups) reacted to such actions taken by both. The results of this research establish the state-of-art and set the baseline. Having a clear picture of the current situation, the project designed a training curriculum to be used for the training of facilitators who would support Wine SME leaders in their to introduce TBL related policies and procedures in their organisations. The curriculum also embedded leadership training as leaders needed to sharpen their leadership qualities.The training curriculum required the creation of the corresponding pedagogic material. A set of tools which were designed to provide a framework of smaller projects within the Wine SMEs and to support activities for all three pillars (profit, people, planet).The skills on how to train the leaders of the organisations were delivered by a professional TBL business consultant to a selected number of facilitators during a 5-day train-the-trainer workshop which was organised by the lead partner. Each partner organisation designated two experienced consultants who were trained to become the facilitators of the leadership workshops and of the implementation of the methodology during the testing phase of the project.Awareness activities also took place in the form of half-day events in every partner country (in some cases more than one due to geographical situation of the areas), where market stakeholders, local authorities and entrepreneurs were exposed to TBL which was projected as an SME sustainability mechanism. Success stories were presented, derived from the respective national market to better relate to. The awareness activities, lead by the trained facilitators, were necessary to stimulate interest with the stakeholders and to attract candidates for the upcoming pilot/testing phase.One hundred eleven Wine SMEs from the partner countries took part in the testing phase. The testing phase lasted 6 months during which the trained facilitators supported the Wine SME leaders to identify areas within their organisation that needed change and deploy measures to bring about changes in the business culture of their organisation. The last phase of the project was to measure the impact the project had had on the target groups and their perception of SME sustainability. The project had not only enlightened the various stakeholders on the importance of looking after ""people"" and ""planet"" besides ""profit"", but also demonstrated how to achieve to go about achieving substantial progress."

"According to the European health and social integration survey (EHSIS), in 2012 there were more than 70 million people with disabilities in the EU-27, equivalent to 17.6 % of the population.The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits discrimination on the ground of disability. The rights of persons with disabilities in the EU are also protected by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), accepted by the EU in 2010. Article 11 of the CRPD refers to the safety and protection of persons with disabilities in conflict and emergency situations. To enforce this, it is indispensable that firefighters are trained on how to address the special needs of individuals with disabilities during emergency situations. Unfortunately, nothing further from the truth. Training on how to address the special needs of individuals with disabilities during emergency situations is not included in the firefighters initial training. In this context, in order to respond to the identified training needs of firefighters across the EU, the objective of the project is to develop the first open and multilingual e-learning platform for firefighters on emergency planning and response when involving individuals with disabilities. The e-learning platform will be accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones. The platform will be available in 5 languages (English, Danish, Spanish, Finnish and Slovenian) and it will contain four modules:Module 1: Autism Spectrum Disorder.Module 2: Visual and Hearing impairment.Module 3: Physical impairment.Module 4: Mental impairment.Each module will include an online training course for firefighters on emergency planning and response when involving individuals with that type of disability, a tool to assess the learning outcomes from the online training course and produce a certificate for firefighters to add to their Europass documents, and a toolkit (set of tools, procedures, and supporting materials) for effective emergency planning and response. In order to assess how effective is the e-learning platform in improving firefighters’ competences, the e-learning platform will be tested with firefighters and individuals with disabilities from four EU countries. The firefighters will first complete the online training and afterwards, they will put in practice what they have learnt by carrying out some simulations and drills with individuals with disabilities. Using the results from the testing, the partners will define the necessary improvements to ensure that the e-learning platform delivers the target learning outcomes.The project will be implemented by a transnational and transectoral partnership involving organisations from the school sector, VET providers, adult education providers, Higher Education Institutions and four fire and rescue services employing professional firefighters and providing continuous training to them. Beyond the partners, the e-learning platform have the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals because it will be published as an OER (Open Educational Resource) under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)"". Thus allowing anyone to freely use all the content as well as to modify it and build upon."

The partners of the e-PPR project (www.e-ppr.eu) carried out a transnational study between Oct-17 and Jan-18 to identify teachers and students’ needs regarding training on response to the emergencies most likely to occur in schools. In total, 677 school teachers from six EU countries (Denmark, Estonia, Romania, United Kingdom, Spain and Lithuania) participated in this study. Results showed that 22.36% of the teachers and 33.37% of the students have not been trained at all. For 41.46% of the teachers and 47.19% of the students who were trained, the training was 'not enough' because it was limited to evacuation in case of fire (87.75% teachers, 94.18% students) and it was too short (less than 3 hours for 62.53% of the teachers, and less than 1 hour for 58.43% of the students). The emergency areas where more training was demanded were: first aid, fire, terrorist threat, earthquake and toxic cloud.In this context, in order to respond to the identified training needs of primary and secondary school teachers and students across the EU, the objective of the project was to develop the first e-learning platform for primary and secondary school teachers and students on how to respond to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.The e-learning platform is accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones in 5 languages (English, Danish, Spanish, Estonian and Lithuanian) at www.schoolemergency.eu and it has the following sections:E-LEARNING for school teachers on how to respond to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.TOOLKITS for school teachers with ready materials for lessons connected to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.EVALUATION TOOLS to assess the learning and get feedback from the students.ONLINE FORUM AND SOCIAL NETWORKS so teachers across the EU can share their experiences and support each other.Once the first development of the e-learning platform was completed, it was tested by the three partners from the sector of school education, and a Danish school as an associated partner: 15 teachers and 271 students in total participated in the testing. Based on the testers’ feedback, the project partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the School Emergency e-learning platform. Beyond the partners, the content of the e-learning platform has the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals. Thanks to its deployment as an OER under the Creative Commons license 'Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)', anyone is allowed to, not only use it, but also to modify it. Therefore, the content of the e-learning platform will serve as the impulsion for future innovations and developments in the sector of school education across the EU.This cross-sectoral and cross-border partnership is an initiative of Frederiksborg Fire and Rescue Service (Denmark) in collaboration with Alcala de Guadaira Fire and Rescue Service (Spain), Estonian Rescue Board (Estonia), Vilnius Division of Civil Protection (Lithuania), Vilniaus 'Genio' school (Lithuania), Gaia school (Estonia), and the high school Profesor Tierno Galván (Spain). The School Emergency project is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union.

Climate change is occurring in Europe, with the European land temperature over the past decade on average 1,3°C higher than in the pre-industrial era, making it the warmest decade on record (Source: Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012 - EEA Report No 12/2012). The consequences of climate change can already be noted through the increase in the frequency of natural disasters. In Europe, according to the Emergency Database of Disasters (EMDAT), the number of natural disasters reported increased from 43 in 1974-1978 to 288 in 1999-2003. All the agencies working on monitoring climate change agree that, in the future, such consequences will intensify with the weather and temperatures being more extreme. Impacts will include natural disasters such as river floods, droughts, forest fires, warm periods, including heat waves, are expected to be more intense, more frequent and longer-lasting. (Source: EEA 2007: Europe’s Environment, the fourth assessment).The impact of natural disasters on the European population ranges from material damage, economic losses, casualties (death and injuries) and psychological distress. However, such impacts can be mitigated through the education of individuals, communities, and disaster responders on three levels: prevention, preparedness and response to natural disasters. Unfortunately, the European population lack the necessary education to face the changes brought upon them by climate change.In order to address the identified educational needs of the European population to face the changes brought upon them by climate change, fire and rescue services, primary and secondary education schools, adult education providers, and public administrations from six European countries worked together in this cross-sectoral and cross-border partnership.The project “e-learning for the prevention, preparedness and response to natural disasters” aimed to develop, validate and deploy a set of innovative educational materials to educate the European population on the prevention, preparedness and response to natural disasters related to climate change. These educational materials were made into e-learning modules and available for free on an e-learning platform as OER (Open Educational Resources). There are four e-learning modules: one for primary school children, one for secondary school students, one for adults, and one for disaster responders (fire and rescue services, emergency personnel and other first responders). Each e-learning module is tailored to the specific needs of its target group throughout a process of adaptation and validation. The execution of the project lasted 24 months and was structured in the following phases: PHASE 1: Development of the educational content for the e-learning modulesThe professionals in prevention, preparedness and response to natural disasters represented by the four fire and rescue services from Denmark, Lithuania, Spain and United Kingdom, developed the educational content for the four e-learning modules.PHASE 2: Adaptation of the educational content to the target groupsTeachers and trainers from primary and secondary schools, adult education centres, and VET providers adapted the educational content of the e-learning modules to the specific needs of each target group. PHASE 3: Translation of the e-learning modulesThe project partners from non-English speaking countries translated the e-learning modules into their national language while the British partner improved the quality of the English version.PHASE 4: First deployment of the e-learning modules The partners deployed on the e-learning platform the four e-learning modules in six European languages.PHASE 5: Validation of the e-learning modules Each e-learning module was validated with its target group (primary school children, secondary school students, adults, and professionals from fire and rescue services) throughout six pilot tests. PHASE 6: Final deployment of the e-learning modulesBased on the feedback from the validation of the e-learning modules carried out during the pilot tests, the partners defined and implemented the necessary improvements before the final publication of the e-learning modules in six European languages (Danish, English, Estonian, Lithuanian, Romanian and Spanish) on the e-learning platform as OER (Open Educational Resources). As the e-learning modules are easily transferable to other countries and to other organisations, every user, teacher, trainer or education provider using the e-learning modules will be a positive step towards the education of the European population on the prevention, preparedness and response to natural disasters.

"Firefighters are ranked as one of the most trustworthy professions across all global regions (source: Trust in professions, GFK Verein, 2015). Therefore, firefighters have the potential to do something more for their communities than firefighting. Being aware of this, some firefighters have already used their trustworthy position to promote social inclusion with very successful results. As an example you can watch ""The story of Zouhair"" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoTPcFWehiAThis proves that something is changing in the Fire and Rescue Services. Firefighters are more aware of their potential to do something more for their communities. However, a lot more could be done if firefighters could access high quality training on how to use their position as role models to promote social inclusion. In this context, the Firefighters Plus project aims at helping firefighters use their position as role models to promote social inclusion. To do so, five Fire and Rescue Services and two NGOs with wide experience in the field of social inclusion have developed the first online platform for firefighters on how to use their position as role models to promote social inclusion. The online platform is accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones in six languages (English, Danish, Spanish, Polish, Dutch and Romanian) at www.firefightersplus.eu and it has the following sections: GET INSPIRED with videos from actions to promote social inclusion implemented by firefighters from several EU countries during the project.ONLINE TRAINING on how firefighters can make the most of their position as role models to promote social inclusion.TOOLS to plan, implement, evaluate and disseminate the results of actions to promote social inclusion. GOOD PRACTICES where firefighters can submit their good practices to be shared with and inspire other firefighters.Once the first development of the online platform was completed, it was tested by firefighters from 5 countries. The firefighters first completed the online training course and afterwards, they put in practice what they had learnt by planning and implementing actions to promote social inclusion in each country. Based on the testers’ feedback, the project partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the Firefighters Plus online platform in September 2019. Beyond the partners, the Firefighters Plus online platform has the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals across the EU. Thanks to its publication as an OER (Open Educational Resource) under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)"", anyone is allowed to use all the content for free as well as to build upon. Therefore, the Firefighters Plus online platform will serve as the impetus for future innovations and developments in the education and training sector across the EU. Within the next two months after the publication of the Firefighters Plus online platform, the impact is already well over initial expectations: - The Firefighters Plus online platform won the European Fire Safety Award 2019. - The Firefighters Plus online platform was presented as a good practice in the European Forum on Integration of Migrants and Refugees in Hamburg (Germany).- The Firefighters Plus online platform was presented as a good practice in the International Safety Education Seminar in Antwerp (Belgium).- In Poland, the National Chief Fire Officer has recommended all firefighters across the country use the Firefighters Plus online platform.- In the Netherlands, Firefighters Plus online platform was presented at the Dutch Fire Congress.The Firefighters Plus project is an initiative of Frederiksborg Fire & Rescue Service (Denmark) in collaboration with Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service (UK), Provincial Headquarters of State Fire Service in Poznan (Poland), The Institute for Safety (The Netherlands), Alcala de Guadaira Fire & Rescue Service (Spain), Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center (Romania) and WIOSNA Association (Poland). The Firefighters Plus project has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union."