"Today's Europe is not in the same shape and size as it was in the past. It is dynamically changing, shifting the schemes and affairs it is comprised of, but, we truly want to believe, that the one thing that never changes is the European Values and the European Solidarity.It is because of those values that we need to reflect on all the different structures in adult education not only on a local, regional and national level but also on an individual level. Thanks to the ""BestBonds - extending the competences of adult educators"" we are going to better and improve the European reality. We trust in the impact on both adult educational and social systems in each of the various dimensions and on each of the mentioned levels.The project will tackle the most pressing, emerging issues, which partners, adult educators, observe in their daily work with adult learners, coming from many different cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. These issues are concerning the educators and learners in many ways, and since the teaching-learning process requires both to be active and present, both are the target of this project. Even now, riddled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the set of troubles and issues has not changed, if anything, the pressing issues from the time before did only get an additional weight to themselves. Only now do we appreciate the true value of skills enabling us to work from home, and how important the ICT aspect of our working lives has become.We believe that these parties should understand each other very well in order to make the learning process as effective as possible. The effectiveness is very dependable on educators' preparedness and openness. The need to supply the learners with viable, valid and proper learning methodologies and curricula is only one of the keys to successful adult education. Adult learners are much different from youth learners, coming from different, often complicated backgrounds, which often become a fundament for future misunderstandings, unintended results, demotivation and, in a later scope, lack of desired knowledge. Another big obstacle presents itself in the form of poor educators' knowledge about not only the learning process itself but, and most of all, motivational strategies, linguistic toolsets, methodologies, ICT classroom elements, Social Media and educational policies. Those are crucial in conducting an inclusive and professional teaching-learning process.All the activities planned in the project are tailored in cohesion with a given partners' needs and desires in order to better his/her experience, the scope of services offered and future perspectives, but also, for all future educators and adult learners to make proper use of. Only thanks to the partnerships we exchange knowledge and experience through can we assure the highest level of quality of inclusive teaching and the best care we can offer our learners.We plan to conduct 4 short-term mobilities:1. The role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in adult education, activation of language skills and international culture.2. Education of adults and professional integration of migrants and national minorities.3. Activation of adults with low competences, including language skills, to undertake the process of professional activation.4. Transnational competences as a key catalyst for an intercultural adult curriculum.They will be fulfilled at 97 local mobilities in total. The projected, tangible results are, as follows:1. An online learning space, for all future learning purposes, for both the educators and learners to use.2. A set of guidelines, intellectually and methodologically valid in accordance with the need of educators and learners.3. An inclusive teacher's profile.4. A toolbox for all the lesson plans and scenarios.The example of the intangible results this project expects to achieve are:1. A good practice network.2. Exchanging and gaining knowledge through international bonds.3. Improving the sets of offered services by all partner organizations.4. Being able to pinpoint all of the strong and weak suits of given national formal education systems.It is profoundly important to conduct the project transnationally for the results to be of a projected, required and up to European Standards quality.Our teaching, based on the communicative methodology and hands-on teaching methods, involve activating all of our participants and teaching by action. This approach will allow participants, both educators and learners to put their desired skills directly to practice whilst learning.BestBonds is going to have a visible impact on various levels: systemic, organizational, educational, teaching material-wise and, most importantly, will serve as a future benchmark for all of the others facing all the same issues sometime in the future.We trust, that this project, by being sustainable and innovative, will prove that for Europe, there is not one obstacle being insurmountable."

<< Background >>During the recent years, the third sector in several EU countries has seen changing its face, appropriating of a long-awaited Regulatory Code. This drive for change and innovation results out of needs and demands that have emerged at multiple levels by more actors in the non-profit sector, and therefore is leading to a transition from a welfare state model towards a welfare or civil society, supported by a generational change of ideas and approaches.It is in this perspective of circular and green economy that does not oppose the state to the market or the market to the civil society, and which shows how in the market can and must operate simultaneously both regular companies and green start ups and enterprises, the valorisation of the social impact fits its measurement. This is the reason why processes that foster green entrepreneurship education and sustainability of resources that enhance individual participation in such learning programs are more than necessary, in view of contributing to development and strengthening of our today's society.In this context, the need of educational opportunities on circular economy and entrepreneurship seems arising, since this is also a way of providing solutions to social problems and at the same time is stimulating economic growth through new employment perspectives. In a time in which unemployment is rising everywhere in EU due to the COVID - 19 crisis, empowering individuals with the competences to create their own and sustainable, environmental friendly job is pivotal. In this sense, based on the experience of the partners and their needs, on the relevance of the subject towards the current EU priorities, as well on the long term potential for cooperation with actors in diverse fields, the AGE project aims at fostering the development of transversal skills related to green entrepreneurship, by using innovative and learner-centered pedagogical approach. Besides of the needs of the context, the current partnership needs strongly to gather expertise at transnational level, especially coming from entities and countries in which circular economy is well developed. There is a real need to demonstrate how sustainable entrepreneurship education works and functions within the Nordic countries in order that similar models could be applied in South-Eastern Eu societies too. This is also the reason why the project has to be implemented transnationally and the main asset of the composed partnership consortio.<< Objectives >>AGE Project will address adult learners and will work on fostering sustainable entrepreneurship education by creating a specialised and learner-driven educational materials and resources, dedicated to development of competences for creating circular economy models, green start ups and digital enterprises for promoting social innovation and strengthen the third sector entities.The specific project objectives set up by the promoters are:• To enhance the evolution of eco-friendly mind-sets among individual learners by strengthening the educational offer and providing opportunities for building skills in the field of green entrepreneurship;• To raise awareness about the existence of specific tools for development of green start-ups, suchas the ECO Business Model Canvas (for circular economy) and numerous best practices in Europe that could be reproduced in other countries• To support green entrepreneurship education through the elaboration of an OER as tangible outcome, offering a specific guide for the development of circular economic model for 3rd sector entities, in particular based on initiating green enterprises and innovation• To raise competences, exchange and disseminate good practices related to education to green economy and training on sustainable entrepreneurship among educators, mentors, trainers within adult educational entities and not only• To support quality improvements and extension of the offer of learning opportunities tailored toindividual learners, thanks to establishing cross-sectorial cooperation among various stakeholdersThe project refers to the creation of an OER in view to serve as green economy curricula for adult learners. It will be implemented by 6 partner organizations from 6 EU countries, composing mixed and balanced partnership with North South-Eastern dimension. Moreover all partner organizations involved posses relevant expertise in the management and implementation of such cooperative projects, some of them also good expertise in sustainable entrepreneurship education. The idea of the composed partnership is also to operate good practices exchange and to apply peer learning strategies where necessary.<< Implementation >>The project will be implemented through several local and international activities. The main actions are listed below:- 4 transnational partner meetings will serve the management of the project as well the preparation of some of the tangible project results thanks to experts working groups that will gather for this purpose. In adddition, the TPMs will be supporting the monitoring and evaluation process which will be regularly operated during the full project duration.- Local meetings and engagement of stakeholders - all partner organizations will have the responsibility to involve additional partners and entities all along the project run. Their mission will be to support the project implementation and to participate in the dissemination and follow up activities. Such partners will be educational HEI and VET institutions, public entities, as well and mainly green start ups, digital companies, etc- production of project outputsThe project will produce 3 tangible outcomes that refer to - research report on the state of art of green entrepreneurship and sustainable education in the partner countries, educational content on topics relevant for teaching sustainable entrepreneurship, OER that will gather the necessary information and will be an interactive resource for adult learners interested to develop green start ups and to become entrepreneurs thanks to the model of circular economy.- testing phase of the outputs ( local work)Learners having entrepreneurial idea relevant for green economy will be able to test the educational materials and deliver feedback on their improvement and user-friendliness.- Dissemination campaignThe project will organize a large dissemination campaign which will include multiplier events in all countries including a final dissemination conference in Bulgaria.In addition, the project will be caracterised by regular activities such as administration, financial and project management, monitoring and evaluation activities, internal communication and online cooperation between partners, virtual meetings, reporting activities, etc<< Results >>The tangible project outcomes refer to:1. Research report on the existing legislation and tools for support of green economy and eco sustainable entrepreneurship in each country. The research will gather information in terms of the legislation for creation of circular economy solutions in the partner countries and at EU level, as well in regards of the needed support to be provided in view of initiating such start ups for development of green innovation2. Training materials and educational course contentPartners will develop tailor-made materials for adult learners, based on the findings identified throughthe research, that will address the following general lines:==> the legal state of art and procedures available for integrating the green economy sector==> How green entrepreneurship education is implemented across Europe?==> Entrepreneurship and green innovation: eco networks and innovative business models==> Tools for effective initiation of green start ups, implementation of innovative circular economy solutions in community and creation of eco friendly enterprises==> Impact investing and project financing, Public /Private partnerships for sustainable entrepreneurship3. Open educational resource (OER)A specific online platform will be created in a way to ease the access for learners of getting to core information they need in regards of green economy and entrepreneurship and will operate as a learning resource hosting the newly created education content. Various educational materials and innovative learning solutions on the topic of green economy will be also available and will be integrated into the OER.Besides of the tangible results that the project will produce, it will contribute to:• Raised knowledge and competences of partner staff members and adult educators for development of OER on green entrepreneurship education• Ability of staff members and educators to offer guidance and support related to the development of ecoentrepreneurship and green innovation, and for acting as multipliers of best practices in this field within their local communities• Acquisition of best practices related to solutions for entrepreneurial education with focus on green economy• A number of learners from across Europe involved in a lifelong learning process and e-learning on green thematics through the released outputs• Stimulation of adult learners to use OER for learning and benefit of increased sense of initiative thanks to the solutions proposed for inspiring green entrepreneurial ideas• Promotion of the significance and importance of green entrepreneurship education, using the produced project outputs as quality support• Increased understanding and awareness of the stakeholders in regards of need of sustainable entrepreneurship in the local communities• Strategic process offering tailor-made solutions to individual learners for creation of green start ups, finding new models of employment, support for career guidance or change of career paths• A strategic cross sectorial cooperation and exchange of best practices in the field, in view of improving green entrepreneurship education across EuropeThe project expects to achieve significant impact in the participating countries thanks to such cooperation, since several entities will be further involved in joint future projects. Thanks to the created transnational cooperation the project will deliver performances for strengthening the level of green entrepreneurship and eco education at national and EU levels. On national and international level AGE will value green entrepreneurship for the community in terms of the impact which it generates for fighting the climate change.Communities all around Europe will better understand the positive effects, which circular economy and the 3rd sector generate, in terms of engaging people for common good, enhancing economical growth and exercising social changes.

The level of human-made global environmental change is on the verge of causing irreversible and intolerable damages to our Earth system, which will most probably deeply impact the structure and identity of our societies and undermine existential conditions of future generations.Travel Transformation tried to find responses to these challenges. The project did so by creating a transmedia travel guide on transformation. The guide consists of audio visual stories, interlinked with blog articles and other formats, amongst others, interactive learning videos and bricolages. The project took up the challenge of creating stories of transformation rather than pointing fingers on better behaviour and unsustainable action. That way, the public can enter the page and intuitively look for the format and content one is interested in or wanting to learn more about. This central output of the project will remain open for further contributions on a long-term basis and is to be found at: https://traveltransformation.kmgne.de Also, the e-learning modules, which where the knowledge and learning base for the participants will remain accessible beyond project duration.According to the above, the overall objective of the project was to contribute to overcoming the barriers which currently stand in the way of the transformation needed to tackle the present fundamental social-ecological challenges by building capacities for transformative literacy and transformative competences to be passed on to the younger generations. All participants have indeed understood and reflected on new narrations and stories which they created, and through which they empowered themselves especially with regard to their role in shaping local, regional, intercultural and global transformation towards more respectful relationships between nature and humankind and between humans on very local but also on international and intercultural scale. In order to reach this objective and to also foster European citizenship with regard to these issues, a blended-learning methodology has been developed by the project partners and backed up by external expertise, mainly for topic-specific inputs, professional media production and intercultural and sustainability related tutoring. This blended learning initially and during the two rounds of capacity building included a three-step process: e-learning before and after the international encounters. However, throughout the project, the e-learning space has become an open space for learning, not only in a linear but very self-oriented and self-directed way – open for participants from the partner countries and beyond the capacity buildings and mobility activities and also open for those participating in national workshops or the general public of the travel guide for transformation. Of course, the two big face-to-face encounters in Germany and Chile with the intensive capacity building, field-trips and the parallel mobility activities caused major dynamics, emotions, learnings, and motivation to keep on working on the project’s issues. This energy has especially shown in the second encounter / capacity building and mobility to Chile after the experience made in Germany. Also very visible, the empowerment of the participating youth workers and youths when organising and realising of three final national workshops in order to pass on competences and lessons learnt to peers. As initially planned, we would resume that the project has indeed managed to become a catalyst for the participating youths, but also for experts, partner organisation and further peers – a catalyst for going beyond traditional methods of capacity building and the production of OER (e-learning platform, modules, videos, song, blog articles and interactive videos on traveltransformation.kmgne.de), and for innovate youth work and social innovation.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to overcoming the strong barriers and post-factual trends which stand in the way of a rapid social-ecological transformation needed to tackle the present fundamental challenges the EU and the world faces with regard to the climate and environmental crisis. It will do so by building capacities for intercultural, communications, and transformative literacy. To do so, it seeks for the creation of new narratives and will create serial stories, and ultimately a web series. For this, the project’s specific objectives are (1) to develop and produce a transformative series on social-ecological transformation with two seasons and several episodes, to (2) embed this Relate! Series in a highly dynamic and interactive transmedia learning platform which will be designed be linked to a variety of social media channels. (3) It will develop and implement a methodological framework to capacitate youth workers and young promoters through organic blended learning focusing on serial and transmedia storytelling. The project thus aims (4) at becoming a catalyst for the claims of the youths’ global and local responsibility and local action and goes far beyond traditional methods and shall function as professional support for the present EU and global movements of young people. The youth workers and young participants from Germany, Greece, Spain, Ecuador, Mexico and Chile will reflect and communicate the knowledge and complexity of these issues on a global scale, always connecting them to their local surroundings in order to give practical examples to their claims and to available scientific knowledge. They will also equip themselves to still increase pressure for national and European policy making and strategy building to show opportunities to take up citizenship towards participatory, inclusive and rapid action. On the present European climate agenda, there is a strong trend of storytelling and the quest for new narratives that guide our actions. However, this takes place on theoretical level, with no practical application yet on how to actually produce stories that build narratives and foster paradigm shifts which may go hand in hand with political change as well. The project will seek for practical application of these concepts which are these days lectured in conferences and discussed in scientific circles but show a lack of practical exploration, even though the generation of the Fridays for Future movement can certainly contribute with lots of strength to this matter when given the right tools, methods and opportunities. One could say, it is an ideal window of opportunity to capacitate on the considerable agenda shift in 2019 and to support the young change agents . Furthermore they have a feeling for rapid communications of daily life stories and are sufficiently flexible to intuitively create episodes of change. This will be the entry point of creating the Relate! Series.

Soft skills OUtside of school Learning environment (SOUL Skills) is a project aimed at providing information about the effects of the current social isolation EU countries undertake as a measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic on children age 6-12. The partnership involves 7 entities from 6 countries (GR, ES, IT, FR IS, 2 from BG) with diverse, but complimentary, experiences, knowledge and qualification in training on different education levels. The main project idea is to give information about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 on children’s behavior and socialization to educators and they to know how to evaluate the appearing deficits and to direct their overcome. The focus is on analyzing the development of soft (transferable) skills after relatively long and unexpected remote education. The project objectives are: 1) to identify lack of transferable skills development of children aged 6-12 years with focus on their development and proper assessment; 2) to create a mechanism (descriptors) for joint evaluation of transversal skills of children aged 6-12; 3) to design a set of methods - Toolbox for supporting development of these transversal skills. The attention is on transferable skills development as it is well known that these skills (creativity and critical thinking, curiosity, communication and collaboration skills, self-assessment and ability to evaluate social situations) are key element for children’s growth and maturity and have to be developed in parallel with acquired knowledge. Engagement in creative and cultural activities during schooling improves a child’s attention and cognition; arts are tools to teach pupils to “envision”, that is, to think about what they can’t see. Remote education in crisis which duration is hard to predict creates lack of schooling culture and environment that reflect on deficits of development of these transferable skills. The 3 project intellectual outputs provide innovative approach to soften the negative effects of social isolation by creating a Joint Evaluation Methodology (IO2) and Toolbox with set of methods based on STEAM approach (IO3), which educators to use to stimulate development of soft skills. The skills that are in the focus of evaluation are revealed in a comparative analysis about effects of different measures taken by Governments to cope with pandemic (IO1). It provides a state-of-art picture about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 to children socialization in 6 EU countries and the comparative information could be used also for policy and decision making to cope the with pandemic.Innovative elements of the evaluation methodology are: measuring the development of transferable skills to be during non-formal training/activities outside of school during cultural and creatively oriented activities, the two educational processes: generating new academic knowledge and forming transferable skills to go in parallel but at different spaces and teaching/training to be provided by different educators, to establish long-term collaboration between schools and centers for non-formal education in order to multiply resources and acquired knowledge by children. Within the activity “SOUL Ambassadors” 14 partner organisations’ staff are trained to use the assessment methodology and work with the developed tools. The partnership will ensure free access to digital learning environment by publishing the 3 intellectual outputs on the Italian partners’ educational platform. Project branding and identity will be established, 4 newsletters published, materials on partner’s websites, social media and 6 national Multiplier events will be held with 175 attendees.The SOUL partnership has established shared responsibilities between the partners. The cooperation mechanisms include: Quality and Evaluation Board; Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy, division of tasks according to experience and expertise of the partners for each project activity, setting of working groups, risk management and conflict resolution. “Project management, organization and monitoring” will strengthen the strategic partnership among 4 non-profits (NGOs and foundations) in the non-formal educational sector and culture and 3 for profits (educational and research centers, SMSs) during four live or virtual project meetings.The outputs of the SOUL project will have a long-term impact as the evaluation mechanism for soft skills and the educational Toolbox will be made available in the foreseeable future to all relevant stakeholder groups, teachers, educators in the creative and cultural sectors and parents. The capacity of the partners’ own solid networks of training and research centers, educational institutions, cultural organizations and authorities at local, regional and national level will be enhanced within the current partnership with the innovative methodology, approaches and tools.