The project focuses on child literacy and inclusion, underpinned by continuing concerns about low literacy levels across Europe, particularly among refugee, migrant and disadvantaged communities, and concern about the growth of intolerance and prejudice threatening social cohesion and inclusion as well as harming the life-chances of individual young people subject to discrimination.There is increasing research consensus: low literacy skills are linked to wider underachievement and disengagement, with extensive impacts. “Literacy problems are not isolated unto themselves. Their effects spread like a disease to poor self-esteem, anger and resentment, disruptive and anti-social behaviour.” (https://acea.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Tom_Nicholson.pdf)It is also now widely recognised that participation in creative activity has a significant impact not only on educational attainment but also on intermediate outcomes such as self-concept and social capital, bringing significant civic impacts and increasing social cohesion.In an increasingly heterogeneous Europe, and in the context of these concerns and the research consensus, the project aims to bring partners’ experience in non-formal arts learning activities to bear on literacy and inclusion, boosting achievement through the power of the imagination and supporting whole school inclusion and equality.Targeting Years 5 to 8 across 20 schools in partner countries, the project will pilot a menu of tailored creative activities, planned and managed in close consultation with schools and school staff working with our tutors. It will extend partners’ existing practice on creativity to address social outcomes as well.A strategy publication will help schools develop policies and processes to create cultures of reading for pleasure and inclusion, school staff will be supported to continue the programme with further cohorts, and young participants themselves will create resources which will then be used in further activities and made widely available in an open access training and guidance pack.The project is expected not only to improve young people’s literacy skills but also develop a broader understanding of inclusion and equality, coupled with creativity, self-confidence and motivation to learn and to become lifelong readers. The 20-week course, spread over two school terms, will involve enabling beneficiaries to gain skills in storytelling and creating stories (narrative, graphic or multimedia) as well as short performances. Their creations will be then designed as books or posters that can be used as learning resources by the schools. This project will not only improve young people’s literacy skills and motivation but will also give them a boost of pride and self-confidence. Schools will have gained both an understanding of strategic approaches to improving literacy and fostering positive attitudes to inclusion and equality, and the expertise to sustain activities and positive outcomes following the conclusion of the project, and project resources will be available for wider use in school settings.Overall the project will both address concerns about low literacy levels directly, and offer ways to tackle wider impacts, on general under-achievement and, crucially, on social cohesion. Only a determined effort, backed by strategies at transnational, national and local levels, supported by adequate resources and training, will address these concerns. This project is designed to make a significant contribution.

"Europe is experiencing one of the most significant influxes of migrants in its history. Pushed by civil war and terror and pulled by the promise of a better life, hundreds of thousands of people have fled the Middle East and Africa, risking their lives along the way. The organisations involved in the project are in frontline in the work with migrants and asylum seekers and feel strongly the need to improve the quality of the services offered and - if necessary - to review their strategy. The main objectives was: to characterize what constitutes a good practices; to identify one good practice in each organisation, focusing on each field of expertise; to provide a virtual and face-to-face space to share and learning from each others; to improve the competences of the educators involved in the areas of house policy, job integration, language teaching, awareness of the local communities; to extend the educators competences of using the ICT for learning; to support the organisation involved in starting a reviewing process of what they offer and how to their target group, by importing elements of good practices acquired during the learning mobilities; to learn how to import some elements of the good practices in each institutions' work; to create a network of organisations that can work together. The organisations involved in the project was totally nine: mainly ""non-governmental organization/association/social enterprise"" but also ""Non-profit making cultural organizations and ""Local Public Body.The main activities was local and trasnational. Each local reality has been involved in carrying out three types of activities. 1) Identification of what a good practice is: a working group in each country defines the characteristics of good practices, using some literatures researches and their own experience. The coordinator of each working group has then shared it and created a common document. This has been the base to identify what practices to share with the others partners during the learning mobilities. 2) Report of the legal procedure that a migrant need to take once arrived in each country the report will focus on steps, timing and consequences. 3) Working on implementing elements of good practices in each reality. After the learning activities, there has been a working group to share what elements of good practices each organizations could import and implement.The staff was involved in three training events in three different locations.The exchange of experiences and practices between organisations was an unforgettable experience that will benefit all for a long time. Meeting and seeing practical examples of life as a refugee left a great impression on the participants. The activities was organised using non-formal education methods, and was focused mostly on sharing and exchanging practices. The participants as well got the chance to better understand the different realities, to visit different stakeholders which influenced their further engagement, but also understandings and vision on how to plan local and national activities concerning the refugees and migrants. The organizations increased their capacity to perform new activities, established networks throughout the city and partnerships with the relevant stakeholders. More specifically, the main impacts of the project towards the organisation were the practices that were shared and explored within the duration of the project. The partners will maintain this results by developing it in their everyday activities. About the longer-term benefits, all the participants will continue to use the practices that were shared throughout the project in our further work after the end of the project. Something which is positive is that the practices are clear, but also they can be transferable and flexible which is very useful for us. An additional thing that will be maintained after the end of the EU funding would be the networking and partnerships, as many of the partners have huge expertise on certain topics, for which we could still consult and share, and also continue to share and comment on different good practices which we see beneficial for the consortium of the project. The successful partnership that we established in this project yielded very fruitful results and hopefully, we will work for similar future activities as well. We think that will be different sources of support: first of all, the partner organisations have everyday activity with the refugee an so they can continue on the implementation of the project results just adding this methodology on their activity without special financial issue (most of the things do not specifically require a huge support, as the contacts and links are already established.), secondly we are talking about the possibility to further apply for funding within the Erasmus+ program, or some other programs and going on the experimentation and the common work."

The pandemic of COVID-19 has highly affected performing arts, acting, theatre, cinema and TV advertising included. Rich research indicates the huge impact of the restriction measures which were taken across EU countries on the Performance Industry. While navigating in these unchartered waters, the New European Agenda for Culture adopted by the European Commission in 2018, has set specific relevant objectives for cultural production, evolution and transformation. Specifically:4.1 Social dimension - harnessing the power of culture and cultural diversity for social cohesion and well-being-Foster the cultural capability 13 of all Europeans by making available a wide range of cultural activities and providing opportunities to participate actively-Encourage the mobility of professionals in the cultural and creative sectors and remove obstacles to their mobility4.2 Economic dimension - supporting culture-based creativity in education and innovation, and for jobs and growth-Promote the skills needed by cultural and creative sectors, including digital, entrepreneurial, traditional and specialised skills4.3 External dimension - Strengthening international cultural relations-Support culture as an engine for sustainable social and economic developmentYoung actors and technicians who are about to enter the respective job market or have just entered it are facing huge difficulties in adapting to these new circumstances for which they were most probably note trained in their drama schools and faculties. In countries with low national budgets for the digital promotion of theatre, lots of plays were streamed through the web in very low quality, thus, degrading the image of the artistic product and the artists themselves. On the other hand, young actors, who are now trying to build their professional profile will have to upgrade their digital skills to be able to present themselves digitally, to possibly pass much more digital auditions and to build their personal digital marketing. «DigitACT:Developing Digital Skills for Young Actors and Young Performing Arts Technicians in the era of pandemic» project addresses the above-mentioned challenges seeking to help young actors and young technicians form the show business sector to be better included in the under-transformation job market of performative arts.This will be achieved through:- Α state-of-the-art research on the current needs and gaps in the partner countries and the creation of 2 workshop curricula (1 for actors and 1 for technicians) focusing on digital skills- The implementation of workshops with young actors and technicians in the partner countries- The creation of a high-tech mobile application for registering and creating a professional profile.- The establishment of a pool of Young Ambassadors who will spread the message of the project in drama schools, universities, artistic associations etc.- The promotion of a Charter for Digital Skills in Performing Arts in the partner countries.