<< Background >>Substance abuse is one of the biggest challenges EU societies are facing. According to EMCDDA, each year it is estimated that approximately more than 15 million Europeans use a class of drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamines, MDMA and opioids. At the same time, according to WHO, per capita alcohol consumption in the WHO European Region, including the European Union (EU), is the highest in the world. Eco-therapy is a formal type of therapeutic treatment, which involves doing outdoor activities in nature. It involves varying amounts of physical activity, depending on the type of programme. It can include activities that focus on:- working in nature, such as gardening- experiencing nature, such as physical activity in nature, cycling, etc. Eco-therapy, especially structured eco-therapy that incorporates aspects of psychotherapy and CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is found to be effective in managing health disorders. Specifically, eco-therapy has multiple benefits, which drug & alcohol abuse counsellors can tap into with the appropriate training: - It significantly reduces stress levels (Park & Mattson, 2009) - It helps against PSTD (Hawkins et al., 2016)- It improves physical health (heart rate, obesity, etc.) - It reduces pain (Malenbaum et al., 2008)These benefits can have a tremendous impact in the rehabilitation process of people suffering from substance abuse disorders, as stress, PTSD and pain management are important factors for recovery (Rosenblum et al. 2003; Gielen N. et all. 2012).However, despite the research done in the field of eco-therapy and its impact on health disorders, this method is still not utilized in the field of substance abuse disorders in Europe. In this context, the project aims at supporting drug & alcohol abuse counsellors in their important role at supporting and guiding people with substance abuse disorders, by providing them with a new and innovative tool for recovery and rehabilitation, the eco-therapy methodology.<< Objectives >>The objectives of the project are: - to educate professionals and build on their capacities to better support people with substance abuse disorders- to introduce the innovative approach of eco-therapy to drug and alcohol abuse counsellors - to respond to the need for high qualified professionals in the field of drug & alcohol abuse- to support VET institutions and therapy centres at adopting eco-therapy courses and sessions (respectively) in their structures<< Implementation >>The following activities are going to be implemented by the project- Mapping of best practices in the field of eco-therapy - Interviews with professionals & trainers on eco-therapy and its potential- Study of current curricula / gap analysis- Creation of the curriculum outline, teaching methodologies and curriculum plans- Development of the educational material and interactive training resources for trainers - Development of the digital eco-therapy toolkit- Creation of the piloting methodological framework - Networking and identification of participants for the pilot implementation - Reporting on the pilot implementation - Development of the EcoTherapy MOOC<< Results >>The following project results are foreseen in the project: R1: Guide for therapy centers and VET institutions on eco-therapy for substance abuse disorders R2: Eco-therapy curriculum and Open Educational ResourcesR3: Eco-therapy digital toolkit for VET trainersLTTA: Eco-therapy resources training for partners’ staffR4: Eco-therapy MOOCR5: Eco-therapy training sessions for professionalsApart from the above-mentioned results, the project will also produce results relating to dissemination. In detail these are: - A project website & project information material, which will be used to promote and disseminate the project to stakeholders and the target groups, as well as to host (website) the project results and to ensure open access to them- A Dissemination & Exploitation strategy, which will set the basic scope, aims, objectives and channels of the dissemination of the project and the considerations for the exploitation of the project results. Lastly, at the end of the project the following outcomes are expected: - Enhanced capacity of drug & alcohol abuse counsellors to support people with substance abuse disorders - Increased use of the tool of eco-therapy in substance abuse disorders - Better accessibility to quality services for people with substance abuse disorders

<< Background >>The goal of this project and the main impact are the preservation of the environment and the social inclusion of the rural communities, through the promotion of their readiness and resilience against forest fires. For this purpose the adult rural communities will be trained on forest fire prevention (as a background knowledge) and most importantly on self-protective preventive and reactive actions when threatened by forest fires.This is aligned with the “current policy challenges” identified in the report “Forest Fires - Sparking firesmart policies in the EU” of the European Commission (2018)- “Shifting the focus from suppression to prevention and increasing the awareness and preparedness of populations at risk”- “Ensuring communities’ resilience to the danger of forest fires [which] requires an improvement in the knowledge of actual exposure to the risk and the effective response in the event of an emergency”.It is also aligned with the booklet “Land-based wildfire prevention - Principles and experiences on managing landscapes, forests and woodlands for safety and resilience in Europe” from the European Commission (March 2021) that refers that “Populations living near green spaces must become acquainted with the different wildfire risks and associated activities. Since urban areas are sometimes stretching into rural areas, there is a risk of wildfires affecting an increasing proportion of the population in these areas. More people must thus be made aware of wildfire and its consequences, and they need to know how to act in case of a fire.”The partnership represents 5 of the 6 EU-28 countries with the largest percentage of burned area between 2008 and 2018. It also includes Turkey as a large non-EU-28 country that had a percentage of burned area comparable to the one of the partners in this project, and it has Germany for the fact that it is a high risk country that is becoming increasingly susceptible to wildfires due to the constant increase of the summer temperatures and for the added danger factor that there are still many unexploded bombs buried in the Germany Natural Parks.The profile of the partners is mixed, and includes both partners with high experience in the E+ programme and partners with no previous experience in E+ projects. This is expected to promote the knowledge exchange and the transfer of good practices on project management between the partners. The main internal knowledge provider is a VET school on firefighting and civil protection, and it includes as associated partners 2 fire brigades, an agency of the red cross, and various municipalities.The main target group are the adults in the rural communities and the local policy-makers. The rural populations with digital skills will be able to freely access the training modules and materials online. And the ones without digital skills will be trained by local stakeholders, as local political authorities, religious institutions, local associations, which will have access to the training materials and resources, and to trainer guidelines.<< Objectives >>This project aims at answering the identified needs of the abovementioned reports. It will accomplish the following objectives:i) train people in the rural areas and neighbouring regions on “how to act in case of a fire”;ii) transfer skills on fire prevention to rural area populations;iii) consolidate actions to increase the resilience to forest fires in rural areas;iv) contribute to forest and life preservation;v) increase the safety of populations by implementing readiness programmes dedicated to civilians.vi) create 1 training module and training materials on self-protection against forest fires and on forest fire prevention.<< Implementation >>The partnership will create a training module on self-protection against forest-fires, that will transfer to the rural populations basic skills to create simple contingency plans to optimally react against the danger of the forest fires.This is the main innovative aspect of the report “Forest Fires - Sparking firesmart policies in the EU” from the European Commission (2018), that refers the need of “Shifting the focus from suppression to prevention and increasing the awareness and preparedness of populations at risk”.For this purpose a training module on “self-protection against forest fires” will be created. This training module will have 3 Units.- The most innovative Unit 3 on “self-protection against forest fires” will explain simple proactive and reactive behaviours to protect the health when exposed to forest fires. - This Unit will build on unit 2 “forest fire prevention”, that is a necessary starting-point to reach Unit 3.- the Units 2 and 3 will build on the unit 1 “introduction to forest fires”At least 400 adults from rural areas will be exposed to these trainings, from which at least 240 will be monitored through a wildfire season in order to evaluate the impact of the training package in their readiness and resilience against forest fires.Generalist dissemination will include web-publications, newsletters and press-releases. Targeted dissemination will include personal communication with rural policy-makers (at least 80) in the end of the project.<< Results >>Results achieved on completion of the project:- 1 training module with 3 units on introduction to forest fire; fire prevention and self-protection against fire.- training platform hosting the modules and the training materials free of charge and in OER format.- development of high quality skills and competencies on self-protection in forest fires and prevention of those fires.- network of cooperation for consultancy in civil protection among partner countries.- dissemination of good practices;- publication on the actions of the project and detailed impact analysis.Quantitative results:80 interviews with inhabitants from rural areas80 interviews with professionals on civil protection and on forest fires8 external groups with 24 members in total80 cooperation protocols with policy-makers32 local stakeholders willing to facilitate the trainings in the rural communities80 participants in the on-site pilot- testing80 participants in the online pilot-testing240 adults trained in the upscaling phase24 good practices collected3 training units and resources on introduction to forest fire; fire prevention and self-protection against fire.1 training platform hosting the units and the training materials free of charge and in OER format.development of high-quality skills and competencies on self-protection in forest fires and prevention of those fires.

"The overall aim of the Project was to use the motivational effects of robotics (including AI (Artificial Intelligence)) and 3D printing to excite students (particularly young people) about science and to develop programmes enable them to engage in the ""New Age Technology” revolution.The specific aim of the Project was to develop an introductory training programme, incorporating a combination of robotics competition activities and curriculum, designed to help teachers to teach programming skills to young people to enable them to gain knowledge and experience of these new technologies, including the use and application of 3D printing.The Project Partners together developed a general robotics/3D printing curriculum that integrated the emerging computer science principles and concepts into the course. The focus being on developing entry-level curriculum (particularly for young people) to enable them to develop their skills and competencies to understand the principles of robotics and 3D printing and their widespread application in industry in order for them to access jobs in these new-age industrial sectors. Robotics is a fast developing market increasingly driven by the development of novel and improved products in areas as diverse as manufacturing, search and rescue and retrieval, inspection and monitoring, surgery and healthcare, homes and cars, transport and logistics, agriculture, and many more.Verbal reports from industry, as well as the presence of constant job openings, indicate industry is having difficulty finding software engineering talent to develop and maintain their software systems. This project promoted best training practice and developed appropriate Training Modules that are required, as identified by the Mapping Exercise. To ensure that the project outputs were received by the required target groups a wide-ranging set of dissemination activities took place – a total of 34,000 individuals/organisations were reached. Altogether, 209 different dissemination activities spread throughout Europe were named by the Partners for the two project years.The general results of this project have been: •Benchmarking: The Project needed to include some desk based work initially to cover the field i.e. the literature of what basic robotics/3D printing training is available, what is known and researched i.e. benchmark work; (a) identify the current techniques/training programmes and (b) understand their value and usage.•Analytical activities: The Partners undertook a European survey and data collection on the use and value of robotic and 3D printing training and identifying good practice. •Training activities: The Partners developed appropriate training modules for use by individuals and training institutions with the expectation that the institutions would adapt/modify the modules to their required needs and add to existing training programme already available.•Mutual learning, exchange of good practices, cooperation: The promotion and dissemination of good practices of training at a European level as determined by the “Analytical Activities”. The overall impact of the Project has been the direct promotion of appropriate ""New Age Training"" Courses on robotics/3D printing - as a viable way of managing the growing needs of employers in the area of new age technologies.Considering short, medium and long term impacts, the Project has provided the opportunity to develop and foster the interest (particularly by young people) in “New Age Technologies” and offer the opportunity to training institutions to undertake appropriate introductory training with a view to assisting young people to secure employment in this fast developing highly skilled sector of the European economy."

Young people all over Europe eat lots of fast foods due to the inordinate use of technological devices, thus increasing the tendency to become unfit, obese and in poor health.The global prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity is high. Lifestyle changes towards a healthy diet, increased physical activity and reduced sedentary activities are recommended to prevent and treat obesity.Evidence suggests that changing these health behaviours can benefit cognitive function and school achievement in children and adolescents in general(1).The aim of this project is to ensure that the healthy lifestyle, which is one of the strategic goals of 2020, is adopted among adolescents.Healthy life has many components.Besides healthy eating, physical activity is also important.The habits in the 13-18 age group give obesity an environment.For instance; they consume junk food, unhealthy snacks,frozen food frequently. Part of this problem also arises from the sedentary lifestyle that has become a normal part of our society and a contributing factor to this sedentary lifestyle is increased screen usage, especially mobile devices.These behaviors bring about lack of exercise, stress, unhealthy eating habits.As a result, obesity increases and becomes a big problem for us every day.We believe that healthy lifestyle will develop with parents and teachers’ cooperation and reach to students significantly.In order to give scientific data to this project, we have chosen countries which can help to reach project’s aim with their students and different from us.The project’s goal is not only to create awareness of healthy living but also to create an international learning environment.In addition, we hope this project might help to limit the number of students dropping out of school due to physical/health problems.All of the activities planned for different countries focus on wholsome living and will struggle obesity and unhealty lifesytle by using open-international education and innovative practices in the digital age we currently live in.The project activities' aim is, between and after the meetings,being dynamic over the course of the project.Initially these activities will stay focus creating a link between the schools through stage a competition of the project's slogan and logo .The survey to be applied at the beginning, middle and end of the project, will include questions about the students' physical activity and nutrition habits as well as their body component. And it will enable us to see the effects of the project in other surveys to be carried out in this later period.Towards the end of the project there will be a research topic how the project, effects the students activity levels and eating habits.In our LTTs which will held in the partners' countries, the trainings will focus on;-the effects of malnutrition-the positive impacts of physical activity-what things should be avoided to not be obese-how to excessive use of mobile phones/screens in general affect to be less active.Through 2 years,100 students aged 13-18, and 40 teachers from 5 countries (Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey,Romania) will have the opportunity to participate in the mobility.Upon this, everyone at school will have the chance to participate in the exchange program during each school visit.The proposal aims to;-to raise awareness among students to become healthier and more active individuals,-to reduce the dependency of fast food, frozen food in the target audience(especially students who have social problems due to health problems),-to develop awareness among teachers and parents about raising healthy individuals,-to enable students to collect new items about healthy-active life and include them in the booklet,-to raise awareness throughout the school with project corners on the walls in schools.Among the long-term benefits of our project is to enable our target audience to behave more consciously about being healthy-active individuals through family and teacher cooperation and to reduce the prevalence of obesity positively.Besides;-develop English language skills which will be used by teachers and students,-having the opportunity to compare their living conditions with the peers of different language and culture,-having the opportunity to develop skills to build relationships in different cultural and social environments, support adaptation to various situations and create an intercultural awareness.The impact of this training will not be limited to the participants; along with all the teachers and students involved in the project, the parents of the students will also participate in some of the proposed activities.(1): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2949908

Everywhere in the world, first aid is the basic knowledge that an individual needs to master in order to be able to help their loved ones and themselves in crisis situations. Knowledge and providing first aid is a must for everyone and should be part of a general culture. It is very important for young people to know and understand the importance of providing help at a given moment. Research has shown that the assistance provided by a person who immediately finds himself at the scene of an accident is an initial and very important link in saving lives. First aid is an act of saving lives, but it is also a reflection of humanity, altruism and a sense of need for other people and first aid knowledge should be part of citizens' health culture.With this project we want to improve the quality of first aid for the general population through the development of online manuals and training for using the manual. The form of the manual itself is designed to be easily accessible, free of charge, clearly written, easy to follow, and not sufficiently expert with recorded simulations of actual injuries. Simulating real injuries and dealing with them will help any person who wants to learn first aid knowledge to spot and properly apply procedures, procedures in the care of the injured on the spot. All the innovations that would show up during the research work, which would be found in the manual and would be expertly explained through the seminar. The seminar itself is planned to complement the online manual in training seminar participants to apply innovative first aid guidelines based on the online manual.Behind this project are 5 secondary vocational schools from Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Macedonia and Serbia. Each participating school in this project seeks to utilize their knowledge and be able to find the most effective ways to provide first aid in their area of expertise. A school in Turkey will explore new ways for bending, which will save time in dealing with certain injuries, as well as new ways and new means that can be used to stop bleeding in the field. The Macedonian school will explore new types of realistic display materials that are easier to model, cost less, easier for procure and are not harmful to health and also what new injuries can make up that have not worked so far. This would give the project a double significance by showing the innovations in the field of realistic injury presentation and all those innovations used to capture real life situations. Our partner from Portugal will be tasked with finding new ways of applying first aid for blast injuries and backlog injuries (injuries to objects that cause body compression). In particular, they will explore how to facilitate the operation of the new immobilization method and shorten the first aid procedure for firefighting. Our Spanish partners will be in charge of AED research.They will conduct a survey to find the best AED performance trainer, and will also conduct a cardiopulmonary resuscitation study to determine which ratio in the number of massage and inhalation is the best, or what range gives the best effect and for this research they will need the best trainer on which to perform the testing. The coordinator school from Kragujevac would be tasked with implementing into its competencies all of the partners' results and according to its research, which deals with the most common types of care for injured people in real life situations, to produce videos of injury management in an innovative way (traffic accident and traffic injuries accidents, fire, etc.) that would be realistically made up and played.The handbook will be used by all first aid teachers to innovate their teaching and to help students master first aid teaching. The organizers of the first aid competition will greatly benefit from the innovative content in the manual to improve the competition itself and to facilitate the work of competitors, referees and commissions. The seminar will be used by practitioners to train practically all the content of the manual, both during the classes and at the markers during the first aid competition.Higher education institutions that provide first aid teaching for both products of intellectual work will be of great importance in teaching, because professors will be able to transfer knowledge to students in an original way and the students who did not have first aid in high school will have a better opportunity to master the course and practical work.Healthcare workers will benefit from the manual if they can apply all the innovations to their work. Driving school staff will greatly benefit from both products, and will help them to train candidates more easily and appropriately.Both products of intellectual work are useful to all stakeholders in order to advance and facilitate their work and help people in self-help, save lives, shorten healing and recovery.