"In times of various backlashes concerning women’s and migrants’ rights as well as increasing inequalities and conflicts on both local and global levels, it is important to strengthen areas where people affected by those restrictions and changes can talk about their perspectives. Community media is one of those areas where voices underrepresented in mainstream media can be heard. It was chosen as a tool for this project because it is open to everyone who wants to get involved, get active and become engaged citizens – irrespective of their education, language skills, abilities and much more.The aim of the project was to build the capacity of individuals producing or interested in producing community media, particularly women and migrants and for the staff members of the partner organisations to exchange good practices in training methods. As the partners in this project had different ""specializations"", experiences, and covered a wide range of issues and target groups (women, migrants, students, activists, NGO-staff) another aim of the project was to exchange those specializations: gender, migration and conflict resolution, as well as to present the outcomes of the project to a broader public.The three partner organizations – Frauensolidarität/Austria (FS), Cyprus Community Media Centre/Cyprus (CCMC) and Panjabi Centre/United Kingdom (PC) – brought together their specific expertise and experiences in working with women, ethnic minorities and on using community media as a mediator in conflict situations. FS organizes and hosts events with international experts, has published a quarterly magazine since 1982, has produced a weekly community radio programme since 2005, implements projects, produces educational material (such as the ""toolkit"" series on labour rights, or a study on women's rights and media) and runs a library in cooperation with two other organizations. Frauensolidarität also provides media training for women and girls. CCMC is the leading community media organization in Cyprus. In addition to running media and communications training programmes for civil society groups, CCMC has launched an online volunteer-based multilingual community radio station – MYCYradio – the first of its kind in Cyprus, specifically targeting and empowering communities and disadvantaged groups that are marginalised by the mainstream media. PC runs a 24/7 community radio station (Desi Radio) and offers radio and computer training for men, women and young people across the community. They organise Panjabi cultural events to empower women through song, folk dancing, storytelling and acting. One main outcome of the project was to exchange knowledge and practices between the organizations about working with volunteers and different training methods. For the transnational project meetings the partner organizations met in Vienna (Austria), Nicosia (Cyprus) and London (United Kingdom) and conducted workshops - particularly for women and migrants - and organized meetings. They created sustainable partnerships and contacts as they set common ground on how to work jointly on building the capacity and significance and empowering the potential of community media. The transnational project meetings brought together activists from different organizations and backgrounds. The workshops provided safe spaces where women/migrant activists could share experiences and gain a theoretical framework that connected women's and migrants’ rights and conflict resolution with communication rights as well as with practical training exchange on the use of community media. To get a broader picture on gender, migration and conflict resolution, the project partners interviewed each other, as well as other organizations that work in the three fields and produced short broadcasts. Those were published on a CD and presented to a wider audience at their last meeting in Vienna. Additionally they produced handouts about presenting a radio programme/podcast, creating radio documentaries and radio dramas. All media outputs can be downloaded from the partners’ websites and used without restrictions. Because of this project, the participants of the workshops increased their skills to work within community media and gained further knowledge on the topics gender, conflict resolution and migration. They were empowered to produce media interventions and got more involved in community media work on an international level. The impact on the organizations was a greater amount of international cooperation and an intense exchange on the topics, training methods and the experience of working with volunteers. Awareness was raised by other stakeholders (students, activists, NGO-staff, adult education organizations) of the existence, importance and empowering potential of community media as an important player within the media landscape, interest on producing community media was increased and this spread the knowledge that people can take ownership of community media."

Community radios and free media are very rare in Balkan region and Cyprus and that is why we decided to focus on addressing this issue. Community radio, by its definition, should serve to community and be free of political influence – it is alternative source of the information. In chosen partner countries community media and media freedom are at low level. In Balkan region media freedom and involvement of youth in media work is lowest in Europe.By project activities, we will encourage youth to be active participants in communities and to be involved in creating another context of media, which are usually under political influence and give sensationalistic information. Media are not dedicated to youth and to their informal education. Those activities are chosen in order to achieve healthy media envirovement in this part of the Europe. After youth exchange, we expect to have 20 young people with strenghten capacities and knowledges they will transfer in their communities after. Also, they will be included in educational event in their communities and create radio shows and articles. This project is innovative since it is connecting few areas: Connecting region, community media cooperation, educational event and common radio programme. Through all those aspects we will incluence on position of community media in region. We expect to:- Empower youth through educative support, exchange and participation in community media as an alternative source of information in community - Empowerment of community media in region as an tool for alternative source of information and active participation of youth - Promotion of community media and networking among the region as a good advocacy platform for future development of this kind of media in Europe

In recent years a number of important changes have been taking place in the Mediterranean and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In the southern Mediterranean, the economic crisis has had a knock-on effect across societies, with issues such as the environment, culture, health, and even identity coming to the fore. The people's revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, spurred on by a popular demand for democracy, human rights, and transparency have highlighted just how interconnected the region is, as well as the role that Europe can play in one of its immediate neighborhoods.The media has played an ambiguous role in the crises which have affected the region - the advent of social media has been hailed as a driver of democratic change and community building, while at the same time economic and political pressures have caused the mainstream media to curb their reporting of the aforementioned issues. In the melting pot of change, the region's youth has been both a driver of change but is also one of the main groups that is suffering the consequences of these crises. Lacking proper information and opportunities, there is a risk of youth becoming disenfranchised within and across societies. Official institutions, operating under economic and political strain and restriction, are not able to address numerous issues of relevance to youth, while the media are not responding to their role in supporting democracy. ECFOLI is a media education project giving the opportunity to the youth of the Mediterranean and Middle East region to meet, share and create in their own communities, around the common issue of Environment and the Mediterranean cultural heritage, fostering therefore a dialogue, and allowing the establishment of long lasting and sustainable skills in conflict resolution.The 30 youth participating coming from of Cyprus, Palestine and Morocco will create different media products which may include digital stories, jazz videos clips, and drama plays that will highlight and promote in their own way the Environment and Mediterranean cultural heritage. the youth will be trained to be the ECFOLI ambassadors and therefore take a more active participation in the society. Through the use and the development of an E-learning and E-coaching multilingual platform, ECFOLI will provide learning and initial and ongoing training material for users as well as communication, collaboration functionalities, collaborative space work and evaluation system to the trainers and participants. ECFOLI will promote, develop and implement an innovative practice in the field of media education in a trans-regional project.The project will take place during 2 years, starting with a training of trainers in Cyprus, followed by the implementation of the different activities in each country and ending after the dissemination of the media products by a final inter regional workshop and conference in Morocco where leaders and participants will share best practices and evaluation. The conference will also gather together practitioners and experts in the fields to ensure the dissemination and sustainability of the projects outcomes. The ECFOLI documentary and exhibition will be launched.

"With the project Generation 0101 project consortium tackled unemployment as one of the most relevant youth problem in Europe today. Interrelated with this issue, there is a growing need for placing a stronger emphasis on the development and recognition of ICT skills in order for people all over Europe to become better educated and more competitive in the job market. Objectives of the project were to increase competitiveness of young people in the job market and thus helping in fighting unemployment in Europe, while emphasizing the importance of ICT for professional development and employability in digital industries, stressing the value of non-formal and informal learning and raising of civic engagement of youth workers and young people in partner countries.Project consortium consisted of 7 organisations from 6 countries: Centar tehničke kulture Rijeka (Croatia), Asociacija ""Langas į ateitį"" (Lithuania), Associazione Centro Studi Città di Foligno (Italy), Cyprus Community Media Center (Cyprus), Izmir Universitesi (Turkey), Latvijas Informācijas un komunikācijas tehnoloģijas asociācija (Latvia) and Telecentar (Croatia). Partner organisations had great experience in raising digital skills of young people, while some were also coordinators of National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs. Out of 6 countries involved in project, 3 countries had Digital Agenda consolidated in national documents and 3 countries didn’t recognise importance of integration of objectives of Digital Agenda into existing or newly developed strategies. In order to define in detail needs of digital market and youth, research was implemented. Main goal was to analyse educational needs in each country and important challenges which has to be tackled if countries want to respond on needs of digital market. Research revealed that countries with integrated goals of Digital agenda already allocated funds for raising digital skills of youth, but also citizens in general, and already responded on the need of digital market, while other countries are facing bigger gap between skilled workers and market needs. According to the results, seven educational modules were developed and 322 young people educated to be eJournalist, speakers on Community Web Radios, web designers, video editors, coders, mobile apps developers or advanced users of online collaboration tools. Materials developed are adjusted for onsite learning, but also for self-studying and last from 20 to 40 hours. In addition, learning is based on practical skills development and it results with project which can be added to personal portfolio. By the end of education, 142 projects were created from scratch by young people and 19 projects which were directly requested from NGOs, CSOs and other organisations important for community development. Methodology of Hackathon showed its usefulness for testing digital skills of young people while having positive impact on local community.Long-term impact of the project is sustained with open educational resources developed and available on www.generation0101.eu, their adjustment for integration into formal educational system and by projects (digital solutions) created for national and local organisations."