"Two years were needed to set up “Aladdin and the Intergenerational lamp”, the Erasmus plus project. Five European partner organizations have been working together to learn about the way storytelling can be used by seniors to improve language, motivational and entrepreneurial skills in young adults from underprivileged backgrounds. This project can thus be summed up in two key concepts: the use of storytelling in an intergenerational context.The different partners of the project have gathered their skills and developed a theoretical background as well as a methodology (encompassing interactive and fun activities) using stories and short story techniques. In this way, the senior volunteers, firstly, received a training on how to work with young adults and how to use methods of storytelling to improve the skills mentioned above, and finally intergenerational workshops were set up to allow the volunteer seniors to act as co-leaders.Elan Interculturel (France) and DEMÀ – Departament d’Estudis dels Medis Actuals (Catalonia) – have based their work on the development of motivational skills. Storytelling Center (Netherlands) and Superact (England) have organised workshops to develop entrepreneurial skills. The Aladdin project has two main objectives:- the development of basic skills (language, entrepreneurial and social skills) as well as the underprivileged young adults’ personal wellbeing. - giving value to seniors’ skills as well as acquiring new skills (short storytelling techniques’)Superact (United Kingdom) and the Storytelling Center (Netherlands) are experts in all kinds of activities related to storytelling. Superact (UK) sets up training courses for adults and young people in precarious situations, organizes large-scale events, and develops training and storytelling materials as an educational tool. The Storytelling Center (PB) organizes project design and implementation workshops; it also offers training programs around storytelling techniques in (conflicting) communities.Kepes (Hungary), Elan Interculturel (France), DEMA (Spain), Superact (United Kingdom) all have experience in working with Seniors and especially in intergenerational projects. The Storytelling Center (PB) and Elan Interculturel (FR) have experience in working with young people. Elan Interculturel (FR) is an expert in the field of intercultural communication, and all partners have experience in working with immigrants and / or minorities.Activities:- ""National Info Day"" held in each partner country to inform participants about the project's objectives, to present the various publications, products and activities within the framework of the project,- The senior workshop to teach them to use storytelling as a pedagogical approach to disadvantaged young adults,- Intergenerational workshops to develop language skills of young migrants adult, or entrepreneurial and motivational skills of disadvantaged young adults, using storytelling methods,- An international final conference, which disseminated project results and products to stakeholders and other target groups for operational purposes.Results:o A theoretical and methodological booklet on the foundations of the projecto A tool box: (exercises, games) based on short stories.o A Guide for Seniors including resources needed for the organizer of intergenerational workshopso A collection of intercultural stories to illustrate cultural diversity and highlight the similarities between cultureso A booklet of case studies coupled with videos made during different workshopso A dynamic, multilingual website with online educational resourceso Social networkso 6 newslettersYoung adults have thus increased their cultural and communication skills, their self-confidence, and, consequently, the improvement of their social inclusion. In addition to acquiring concrete skills on how to organize such workshops and develop storytelling training skills, this project has had a positive influence on senior volunteers’ self-esteem (the feeling of being “useful”) and avoids isolation.The participating organizations have acquired new skills, resources and networks at local, regional, European and international level. In the long run, many participants wish to continue the activities after the project, in different ways."

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVESThe European migration policy remains a key priority of the European agenda, leading to a continuous development and update of relevant policies and measures in order to ensure the successful migrant integration into the host societies. According to relevant researches and reviews, the most important factors that can lead to a successful migrants integration are social inclusion, active citizenship and inclusion to education and employment. Focusing on the issue of inclusion to employment, data provided within the EUROSTAT publication “Migrant integration, 2017 edition” show that, despite a high level of education, migrants present higher rates of unemployment and over-qualification compared to those of native-born residents. According to the same publication, it is reported that migration-specific work obstacles such as language and communication challenges, lack of recognition of foreign credentials and experience and discriminations on social and religious grounds may have contributed to this situation. Therefore, the need for supporting 2nd generation migrants overcome these challenges and make their way into employment is more than obvious and imminent. To this direction, ACT POSITIVE partners, by recognizing the importance of positive psychology, aim to develop a new innovative method of training courses that will empower unemployed 2nd generation migrants to not only adapt to potentially stressful events and successfully assimilate these, but also to use these potential stressors as opportunities for positive growth based on identification and utilization of key Positive Psychology constructs and processes.PARTICIPANTSIn order to meet the project’s objectives, at least 30 unemployed 2nd generation migrants per country will be involved in the project’s activities. Other participants that will be indirectly involved are VET trainers and organizations, representatives of public authorities and policy makers, NGOs’ and other relevant stakeholders’ representatives.ACTIVITIESFirstly a synthesis report will be developed including the findings from a literature review on the challenges and obstacles that 2nd generation migrants face within their efforts to find a job along with their needs for developing new skills and/or improving existing ones and from a field research aiming to collect data directly from the project’s target groups.. This report will contribute as a framework for the development of the Training Curriculum, the training course (IO2) and the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit (IO4). The training course and the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit along with innovative gamified features will be also available through the project’s gamified e-learning platform (IO3).METHODOLOGYRESEARCH: Partners will compile a synthesis report of existing literature on the challenges and obstacles that 2nd generation migrants face within their efforts to find a job along with their needs for developing new skills and/or improving existing ones in order to improve their position within the labor market. At the same time, partners will conduct a field research aiming to collect data directly from the project’s target group: 2nd generation migrants. All relevant findings will be included in the overall synthesis report called “Analysis of the State of the Art on Employability needs of 2nd generation migrants”, which will contribute as a framework for the development of the Training Curriculum, the training course (IO2) and the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit (IO4).PILOTING & EVALUATION: The application and experimentation of the developed training course into the partners countries. A minimum number of 30 2nd generation migrants will be included in the piloting activities and will complete the course on the online gamified platform. Online coaches will guide learners throughout their journey, throwing light on their forthcoming missions, helping learners keep on track. The piloting activities will include:1) introductive face-to-face (or via webinar) lesson (to introduce the course); 2) online lessons on the gamified e-learning platform.EXPLOITATION: the two main tools that will be used for ensuring the wide recognition of the project’s results will be the gamified e-learning platform (IO3) and the ACT POSITIVE Toolkit for VET trainers / organizations and policy makers, ensuring:1) availability and sustainability of the project’s results2) the highest possible level of transferability of the tools, materials and methodologies developed within the project.RESULTS & IMPACTAs an overall result, ACT POSITIVE will contribute to the development of an innovative approach to enhance resilience and utilize the strengths of European 2nd generation migrants, based on the positive psychology theory. ACT POSITIVE is also aiming to strengthen the European agenda for the promotion of the issue of migrants’ social inclusion through action that promote their inclusion into education and, mainly, employment.

In the last forty years Europe has become a multicultural, multilingual and pluri religious society. Immigration phenomena cannot be considered an emergency anymore. As European citizens, we need to develop an intercultural attitude to be able to manage the cultural differences that increasingly characterize schools, job places, social services and public spaces. ObjectivesIntercultural skills cannot be improvised: they need specific training and a self-reflective attitude, which can be learned. In this project, we propose to:• fostering intercultural competences in different target groups by disseminating the MCE innovative intercultural approach thanks to training courses and multiplier events;• developing an intercultural approach in public and private life that can help to fight against discrimination, racism and extremism in schools, social services, public spaces, and so on;• developing, through the intellectual outputs and the joint staff training, a standardised competences framework, a course curriculum for intercultural training, original methods and new toolkits starting form Cohen-Emerique’s approach. Cohen Emerique’s intercultural approach:Cohen-Emerique noticed that migrants and professionals working with migrants often go through misunderstandings, cultural shocks and violent conflicts because of the different cultural frameworks and scale of values they act. When they live these cultural shocks, they fell vulnerable, angry, disoriented and their personal and professional skills are nearly paralyzed by these negative feelings. Instead of breaking off dialogue and relationship, Cohen-Emerique invites trainers, educators, volunteers and migrants to live cultural shocks as an opportunity to become aware of everyone’s cultural points of view, to share them by using words in order to promote dialogue and mutual understanding. Target groups: We address to intercultural trainers working in the social, education and health sectors, to professional educators working in social services, child protective services, in the juvenile justice field and in recreational public spaces, adult teachers working with migrants both in formal and non conventional schooling contexts, migrant parents, young migrants and volunteers working with immigrates in food stations, centres for first assistance and family clinics.Partners:Ruah (Italy) is a cooperative that aims at promoting social inclusion and an intercultural approach by offering intercultural training, language courses and welcoming first centres activities for refugees. Artemisszio (Hungary) is an independent private non-profit organisation that encourages continuous interaction between culturally, ethnically and socially diverse groups. They propose intercultural training based on the MCE approach and innovative methodologies such as forum theatre. CBAI (Belgium) is an association active in the fields of intercultural training, welcoming first-comers in the Brussels- Capital Region and supporting migrants associations. CESIE (Italy) is a European Centre of Studies that aims at stimulating change in educational, cultural and economic spheres. They have been working with the MCE cultural shocks methods in different domains (i.e.: diversity management in healthcare). Elan Interculturel (France) is an organisation that develops new methods to facilitate intercultural communication, collaboration and adaptation; the organisation’s staff has been directly trained by Margalit Cohen Emerique. Diesis (Belgium) is a European Research and Development Service for Social Economy which covers more than 10 EU countries through major national federations and national support networks.

Professionals from social and health sector working with vulnerable groups have a high absenteeism. This is due to stress and burnout, leading to increasing annual public expenditure in the participating countries. They are overwhelmed partly because they lack efficient tools to cope with stressful situations and to build resilience in themselves. Furthermore, their patients face problems originating from poverty and lack of education but also from mental health problems and cultural differences. To differentiate the effects of these factors is then a challenge. In the RESICARE project we aimed to develop educational materials for social and health professionals that can be incorporated in the vocational education system. These materials/tools will enable them to - better understand their relationship with their vulnerable patients (by reflecting on their patient’s and on their own cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and expectations) - notice the differences between signs and behaviors that suggest cultural differences as opposed to mental health issues - better understand how resilient behaviors can be manifested differently in different cultures/subcultures - learn how to use a wide range of activities (based on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), art therapy, cognitive neuroscience and on the combination of these approaches) to better cope with stressful situations, to build resilience in themselves and to avoid burn-out Our primary target groups were - People working in the helping professions (social workers, health professionals) - Social and health profession students (future professionals). - Institutions, organizations providing continuous / initial education for health and social professionals Our secondary target group consisted of the vulnerable patients of helping professionals. Intended impact on the target groups: By getting familiar with these new approaches and techniques, social workers and health professionals can better cope with the stress inherent in their work and can help their patients more efficiently. In the long term this can lead to increased self-efficacy and higher job satisfaction. Institutions training social workers and health professionals will get acquainted with new methods that they can incorporate in their own pedagogical work. To reach our goals and achieve the intended impact we developed 4 Intellectual Outputs: - the Foundation Bricks (O1), that explains the main concepts (mental health, resilience, culture) and their intersections from both theoretical and practical viewpoints - the Manual of Critical Incidents (O2) that explains how the interpretation of problem situations between health professionals and their patients are shaped by cultural background, by one's beliefs and expectations, and how to differentiate the many possible factors (e.g., culture, mental health issues) behind problem behaviors - the Building resilience in social workers and health professionals toolkit (O3) that will equip these target groups with evidence based methods to better cope with stressful situations, to build resilience and to prevent burn-out - the RESICARE Open Educational Resource (O4) will ensure that the developed results, corresponding background materials and a series of video lessons are freely available to a wide audience for years after the project ends. We involved 616 social workers and health professionals and 79 vulnerable people directly to test our newly developed materials and we reached more than 245.060 secondary beneficiaries through project dissemination, exploitation, and transferability. The durability of the project is assured by the materials' long-term availability on the RESICARE website and on EU on-line platforms and also by offering future workshops and courses built around these results.

"CONTEXTWe are witnessing the lack of direct interaction between people who share a common territory, especially between people in social marginalization and those with more privileges. This has serious consequences such as racism, stereotypes, xenophobia and withdrawal. Our workshops meet the need for exchange between people in a benevolent and constructive setting. They thus make it possible to re-humanize the way how ""others are perceived"" by putting people, stories and voices, on these images. We are convinced that we have a lot of richness to exchange, while the prevailing speech is based on distrust. From the training to the show, workshops are driven by exchanges and collective reflections, and by the practice and the explanation of radiophonic methods.The joint creation of a radio program is a pretext for a meeting. The microphone releases the speech. It is an opportunity to create a dialogue and to question our daily environment and to address some taboo or overlooked topics related to social inclusion.OBJECTIVESV.I.T.A (Voices In The Air) Project would like to set a new methodology to use the radio not only as a mean for self-expression and representation but also as an artistic and creative way to address topics related to social inclusion such as empowerment, equality, interculturality, identity, values and democratization process.1- The social inclusion of minority groups through empowerment and with techniques of Social Radio with the willingness of combating the prejudices and stereotypes, from their own perspective and stories. 2- To generate radio and media content to raise awareness of discrimination in society with special attention to ageism, gender inequalities and different kinds of diversity, such as sexual orientation or cultural origin by actively promote their social inclusion.3- To support individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences (by the co-construction of the radio workshops, pre and post production)4- Extending and developing the competences of educators and other personnel who support adult learners by providing a complete set of tools to easily reproduce the experience with their own groups. We will also provide them with the necessary background theory to better address key topics of Social InclusionMETHODOLOGY1. Participatory Methodologies: allow a group with diverse interests to acquire an ever greater role in the analysis of their own reality and decision -making, thus become crucial actors in their own development. 2. The Process Oriented Psychology: focuses on developing a state of consciousness; i.e. helping individuals and groups to realize how they perceive and live their experiences and learn to change their approach. 3. Radio techniques following the output of IO1: methodology consisting of a set of exercises that promote observation, critical action and pro - positive participation. The methodological arsenal of Theater of the Oppressed, Personal Storytelling, allows for individual and collective reflection and action will be helpful to work on the skills needed to communicate through Radio regards to structural social problematic, minority group conflicts and individual internalized oppression. PARTICIPANTS / Activities and ResultsThe whole project is designed in a way that the targeted group of disadvantage people feels represented and more important feels that the project belongs to them. We payed special attention on how to integrate their perspective and interest in almost every Intellectual OutputThey will be at the same time participants on the co construction of the IOs , participants and main actors of the radio workshops.IO1 : Setup Radio WorkshopsParticipants will be trained by the partner's organisation on how to prepare the technical parts of the radio workshop so they can later be multipliers themselves for their communities or others that want to reproduce the radio show experience.IO2 : Case StudiesParticipants are and the protagonist of the case studies, they will work alongside the trainer of each partner organisation witnessing the experience, testing the different methodologies, preparing and co constructing the workshops and the topics they want to addressIO3 : MethodologiesParticipant are invited to brainstorm and explore different approach on the radio field. To develop technical skills related to the production of a radio show and all the necessary soft skills to achieve it. All of this competence are transferable to other domains as for example to enter the labor market.IO4 : Repertoire for Social Inclusion Participants, helped by the trainer will find key words or topics they want to address as key factors of social inclusion. IO5 : Self Learning platformThe participants will offer their testimonies and experience as they will be the protagonist of each case study. They will disseminate their production radio shows , methods and repertoire."