Travel by people with disabilities, also known as “disabled travel” or “accessible travel,” is on the rise. The travel industry is waking up to the special needs of travelers with disabilities by providing more services and greater accommodation. Meanwhile, the sheer abundance of information on accessible travel is astounding — much of it generated by travelers with disabilities themselves.The European with Disabilities Act guarantees that travelers with disabilities receive equal treatment under the law. While this would be the case in a perfect world, it doesn’t always work out that way in real life, especially in foreign countries where accessibility regulations vary widely. Despite having common sense, considerable public sentiment and strength in numbers, travelers with disabilities frequently face inadequate facilities, prejudice, misinformation, general hassles and higher prices than other travelers.World Health Organization estimates 285 million people to be visually impaired worldwide. Out of which 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision. However, they are not travelling at the same rate as people without disabilities and the public, stakeholders and the government have the right to address the difficulties and create an environment for the visually impaired travelers. People with vision impairments have the right to participate fully in the community and enjoy the same quality of life as people without disabilities. However, they are not travelling at the same rate as people without disabilities. The reasons for such low participation rates are not yet clear. But one of the reasons could be the difficulty and sometimes harrowing nightmare to travel in unfamiliar. Although they are a minority, they also deserve the same recognition as everyone else and to consider it as our social responsibility to create awareness among the public about the difficulties the visually disabled face in general and then help to increase the independence level among them. This is possible only when the experiences of such travelers are identified and addressed properly. About 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries and 82% of people living with blindness are aged 50 and above. In Malaysia, the recent statistics produced by the Department of Social Welfare in 2010, shows that the total number of blind/visually impaired people who have registered has increased from 26,155 in 2009 to 27,582 in 2010 and has been steadily increasing over the last few years.Main project objective is trough development of barrier-free tourism OER and cross-traffic navigation solutions, to make traveling accessible and safety for blind and visually impaired people, the AST for VIP project aim is to improve the mobility and quality of life of these people all around Europe.Project specific objective:• using innovative approaches for access for safety and security traveling for visual impaired;• improve the level of key competences and skills, with particular regard to relevance for adult persons with visual impaired and their contribution to a cohesive society, in particular through increased opportunities for learning and through strengthened cooperation between the world of non formal education, traveling and training;• identifying ways to implement innovative non formal teaching and learning methods to respond to the needs of adults persons with visual problems during traveling;• developing actions to facilitate inter-generational transfer of knowledge;• describing the ways in which assessment methodologies and procedures can embed all forms of learning, and facilitate the validation of skills and competences acquired prior to safety traveling;• enhance the international dimension of non formal education and training, in particular through cooperation between Programme Country institutions;• planning the progressive roll-out of project deliverables leading to systemic impact.

<< Objectives >>DREAM (Digital Resilience for European Microenterprises) is innovative and timely as it tackles COVID-19 challenges and digitalization in the 2 worlds of VET and MSME with the objectives of:- support micro and small businesses by providing up-to-date training to help them cope with digital transformation and adapt to post-pandemic; - adapt VET to market needs via mapping and increase its flexibility via DREAM OER Digital Lab.- enrich the provision of formal/non-formal VET across EU.<< Implementation >>The activities envisaged are:- Develop DREAM Digital Lab, multilanguage open tool for the transmission of digital knowledge for MSMEs embracing digital entrepreneurship in postpandemic economy- Mapping economic impact of COVID on MSMEs and their digitalization process - Develop and translate learner-centred training contents in 6 languages- Develop DREAM position paper for MSMEs Digital readiness- Perform management activities- Monitor Quality and Financial Accuracy- Promotion & Sharing<< Results >>Results-At least 120 MSME trained-Report to map post-COVID digitalization challenges-Free tested trainings in 6 languages delivered online via Digital Lab-Impact on microenterprises, entrepreneurs, VET system in support of entrepreneurship-Increased resilience and competitiveness of MSMEs-Enhanced VET to adapt to markets’ needs in post-pandemicDREAM results currently do not exist, it bridges gaps with up-to-date training & tools specifically targeted at MSMEs in a pan-Eu perspective

"<< Background >>The MORE project (""Multifunctional role of women as a key driver for rural development"") aims to improve the access to, and the quality of, training opportunities and qualitifications of rural EU women. The realities of women's lives in rural areas have become more diverse in recent decades. In today's society, women assume a ""multifunctional role"" in the multi-faced context of their families (i.e. child and elderly care) and social and labour ties. This multiplicity of roles contributes significantly to improvement of their families' quality of life, as well as rural socio-economic development, civic engagement, and ways of rethinking the territorial contexts. According to the EU Parliament, the multifunctional role of women is essential to save rural areas in Europe, whose population is expected to shrink to almost 8M by 2050, in contrast with a fast-growing urban population that will reach 24M by 2050. Rural women still face serious disadvantages, compared not only to rural men, but also to urban women. Due to the structural drawbacks of local labour markets, women have to out-migrate from rural areas at a higher rate than men. Yet, for older generations, the domestic caregiver role is a significant barrier to mobility. Rural women are more dissatisfied with educational and employment opportunities in their regions. Moreover, they contribute significantly to the farming sector in terms of working time in agriculture. However, only 30% of farm holdings in the EU are officially owned by women. Most of times, official documents, rights, and representation within farm associations or local groups are at the name of their male counterparts. Although rural women's multifunctional role has been stressed by EU decision-makers, it is actually not endorsed by the policy and socio-economic sectors of national and local realities. The MORE partners have faced these challenges in first place, within the regional rural contexts in which they operate. Hence, they have decided to promote a project proposal to contribute to filling these gaps.MORE thus responds to the need for increasing rural women’s skills and capacities and making them direct actors of the social, policy and economic processes at local level. Limited research and education action have been so far undertaken on multifunctionality: MORE will overcome these limitations by conducting in-depth research analysis, developing 10 e-learning training courses and promoting the first digital community of rural women, directly supported by the feedback of target groups.<< Objectives >>Considering the challenges outlined above and the current EU rural context, MORE aims to improve and promote the multifunctional role of rural women by enhancing their wide range of skills and encouraging and motivating their participation into local ecosystems. In MORE, rural women are conceived as key drivers for their territories’ development and regeneration. The project will aim to stimulate and promote inclusive participation of rural women, including female migrants, in the project activities, along with trainers and local actors, by creating specific communities of interest, knowledge and alliances. Project core products will be co-designed with stakeholders to ensure the results are in line with their needs and interests and can be sustained in a longer term. The project will establish local “Rural Women Hubs” (RWHs) in 7 rural territories of 5 EU project countries - Spain, Romania, Poland, Italy, and Greece. The EU perspective will be ensured by a dedicated partner with long-standing expertise in EU values' advocacy and high-level connections across the EU and within EU institutions.MORE education action will strive to improve a number of capacities strictly related to multifunctionality, which have emerged from literature review, partners' direct experience and talks with local stakeholders performed at the proposal preparation stage. In a fast-changing world, key needed skills for rural women empowerment shall include digital literacy, entrepreneurial mindset to be social entrepreneurs or self-employees, multilingual competences, adaptation to climate change and ways to promote rural sustainability, work-life balance, flexibility to adapt to radical changes such as the ones imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on our societies and economies. MORE will improve the access to these qualifications by developing high-quality educational content, easily replicable in other EU countries.MORE expects to promote new know-how and educational & digital products for EU, national and local stakeholders, to provide women with proper skills, and to advocate for better services, education and infrastructure to ensure a balanced life in rural territories and prevent further migration towards cities.<< Implementation >>The project foresees 3 main ""Project Results"", plus complementary activities including local activities with RHWs, dissemination, sustainability and project management.The core project products include:1) Development of the first training programme for multifunctional rural women. MORE will tackles different fields of multifunctionality through 10 e-courses on core skills related to multifunctionality, which emerged from partners' research and interviews with local stakeholders: professional, digital, social and personal skills. The training content and tools will be designed with the input of direct target group and local stakeholders. The courses will be then tested in a pilot and further fine-tuned based on the feedback received. At least 220 rural women, including female migrants, and 20 educators/trainers will be engaged in the pilot.2) Conduct of extensive research on multifunctional role of rural women: concept, trends & patterns, policy-framework, best practices, etc. The research study will conclude with specific guidelines and recommendations for the public and private sectors of rural territories, as well as for national and EU policy-makers. 3) Structure, launch and growth of the first EU digital community dedicated to multifunctional rural women, through the establishment of an innovative community platform for knowledge sharing, discussions, storytelling and free access to the MORE results.To complement these core technical activities, partners will promote local events such as conferences, talks, dialogue meetings, etc within their own hubs. Hubs will be conceived as a sort of living labs for knowledge sharing. Key attention will be paid to dissemination & valorisation activities, respectively to raise awareness of the project and ensure transferability and sustainability of results. A physical multiplier event in each participating country will be organised, and complemented with digital promotion actions to reach a wider impact. Finally, project management issues will also have a dedicated space to ensure smooth and efficient implementation of activities within the budget and time requirements. Three transnational project meetings have been foreseen to ensure cooperation and knowledge transfer. These have been scheduled in a way to benefit from other parallel project actions e.g. in conjunction with a multiplier event to allow all partners' attendance.<< Results >>Key expected impacts will be on project direct target group (rural women), in terms of reinforcement of capacities to explore innovative forms of social, personal and labour value creation and new opportunities of growth and competitiveness. They will be the first ones to benefit from the training and explore personal and professional growth, and business opportunities, to reinforce their multifunctional role. The project will engage rural women together with other key local actors, in the RWHs, to share experiences, deepen skills, create new partnerships and alliances and raise awareness of the multifunctionality and gender balance promotion at local level. This is aimed to contribute to the development of the sense of community and create a better environment and open new collaborations in the rural areas.Concrete results are, among others:- 7 local hubs established, whose overall activities will reach 490 people;- 1 Digital Community Platform;- 10 e-learning courses on multifunctionality, co-created with stakeholders in dedicated meetings within the hubs and tested/evaluated by at least 250 individuals;- 1 comprehensive research study, whose results will be published in relevant publications;- 6 multiplier events;- 3 transnational project meetings;- 1 call for replication launched to seek commitment from further adult education organisations to adopt the training course;- concrete policy recommendation, also summarised in a official White Paper, to advocate for policy and financial support for rural female multifuctionality in the EU;- partners sustaining project products within their institutions in the long term, along with associated partners;- a wide pool of policy-makers contacted and informed about the project outcomes."

CONTEXT & NEEDEU SMEs are the most affected by the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown: Europe is “closed for business”, and while large companies have systems in place to implement telecommuting and Smart Work, SMEs (especially microenterprises) do not have ICT systems in place nor policies for their staff to work remotely.The EU Commission provides a worrisome picture: less than 15% of EU SMEs are ready to implement Smart Working arrangements. The most recent study Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere” of 2017, reports that only 2.8% of employees in the EU adopt Smart Working. This means that when the pandemic stroke Europe, very few SMEs were ready and had systems in place to adopt telecommuting arrangements.EU SMEs are the most exposed to the risk of not being able to ensure business continuity and be resilient in times of crisis. More importantly, they are less prone to reaping the benefits that Smart Working can bring due to the lack of guidelines on the most suitable ICT solutions and practices to implement Smart Working and of mechanisms to manage Smart Working and telecommuting.There is a pressing need to equip SMEs and empower their staff to implement Smart Working. This is confirmed by relevant EU position papers and studies:> EU Commission, “An SME Strategy for Sustainable and Digital EU”, March 2020: calls for the swift adoption of ICT solutions to enhance the competitiveness and growth of SMEs> Eurofound/ILO “Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work” 2017: identifies the need of EU SMEs to adopt Smart Working as a means to increase efficiency, improve working conditions and reduce costs.OBJECTIVES of SWIFT are to:1) Fill the skill gaps identified by the EU and national entities to equip SMEs with skills, competences and solutions to be more flexible, responsive and efficient through Smart Working arrangements2) Provide venues for SMEs and their staff to develop competences, skills and tools to adopt and adapt Smart Working for their resilience, competitiveness and growth3) Enhance the responsiveness and flexibility of EU SMEs to ensure business continuity in times of need and crisis, while increasing their competitiveness and efficiency through effective Smart Working4) Increase the growth and competitiveness of EU SMEs through more relevant and timely training to empower them with the operational tools and equip them with the skills to be more resilient and flexibleTARGET GROUP is identified in SMEs and their staff, especially in the small-scale enterprises in the service sectors. Such target groups was selected thanks to the thorough analysis of the state-of-the-art carried out at preparation: SMEs are the most vulnerable to asymmetric shocks and uncertainty and are the least equipped to implement Smart Working to be more resilient and efficient.PARTICIPANTS are the 6 partners from 5 EU countries representing the world of VET, enterprise and ICT. Moreover, at implementation partners will engage at least 120 target groups in the delivery of the SWIFT training, more than 100 stakeholders and decisions makers in the Multiplier Events and more than 287,636 people at dissemination level.ACTIVITIESPartners will carry out the following activities:a) Develop the SWIFT OER Platformb) Develop a shared methodology for the mappingc) Consolidate findings in IO2 to map dynamics, trends and needs for Smart Working adoption, including technical, operational and human resource implicationsd) Develop the SWIFT training and tools for Smart Working adoption in SMEse) Deliver the training to 120 target groupsf) Develop guidelines for adoption of SWIFT and its mainstreaming in VET and SME ecosystems in EUg) Put forward policy options to promote Smart Working and competitiveness of SMEsRESULTS & IMPACT are1) The dedicated SWIFT Platform that is the Open Educational Resource for all SMEs across EU that can access for free, without restriction and in full Open Access mode all the SWIFT content, training, tools and resources available in multiple language versions. To ensure long-term impact, the SWIFT OER Platform will stay live for at least 2 years after the project2) The SWIFT SME training courses, handouts, operational tools and guidelines for European SMEs to adopt, adapt and implement Smart Working to be more flexible, resilient and competitive3) Enhanced competence of SMEs’ to implement Smart Working that will lead to increased flexibility, responsiveness and competitiveness. Moreover, the adoption of Smart Working will enhance work-life balance of employees while producing efficiency gains for SMEs4) Increased operational capacity of SMEs to be more responsive in the ever-changing global markets being more able to adapt to external conditions that require to adjust business processes.

Loneliness, isolation and social exclusion are important risk factors that can lead to poor health in older people, especially in the absence of family networks or insufficient family support. The project aims to address these problems through the promotion of active ageing, encouraging seniors to adopt a range of good practices to preserve their health through the use of new technologies.More specifically, it aims to create and test a platform that brings together various training courses to improve the memory and learning skills of older people, as well as to familiarise themselves with practical services related to online shopping, various bookings, etc. Through the use of this training, we expect to improve the cognitive capacity and health of seniors and slow the decline in memory and cognitive capacities. In addition, the great flexibility of the technological tool will allow the content of the training to be varied by adapting to individual learning needs (e.g. foreign language vs. daily services, etc.).