ContextYouth unemployment is an Europe’s unshakeable challenge and volunteer activities are not only a way to serve the local community, but can also be a successful strategy as part of youth employability. Local development can be a direct response to a high, persistent and concentrated youth unemployment. If implemented properly, local development initiatives can bolster efforts to create employment, tackle poverty and improve governance. VOLEM project aims to strengthen the recognition of key competences acquired by young adults during volunteer activities in local development and to promote them as valuable for their entrance into the labour market. This strategic partnership is a cross-sectorial cooperation between the Municipality of Cinisello-Balsamo (public body, IT) UAESS-CAP SOLIDAIRE (non-profit organisation, FR) ART SQUARE (company, LU). The objectives - To raise awareness and upskill volunteering stakeholders and young people on innovative youth volunteering experiences in the field of local development- To design a competency framework using innovative badges for the validation of competences acquired through voluntary action in local development by young people- To boost the vocational integration and the employability of the youth by the recognition of their skills and knowledge acquired during their voluntary missions.- To strengthen the capacities of the organizations working with volunteers.- To create working synergies in the promotion of voluntary missions in Europe and the recognition of competences acquired by the young volunteers at the local or European Union level.Participants will be young people, young volunteers, and youth workers and will be more than 200 direct participants (about 80 youth workers and more than 130 young people) and more than indirect 600 participantsActivities and methodology As first, the VOLEM consortium will co-design a template in order to collect case studies, projects, practices etc. (IO1) based on specific criteria such has for example the key competences (innovation/creativity, teamwork, project management, entrepreneurship culture) that are developed during the volunteering experiences in local development. The second production will bring the partners to design awareness raising and promotion toolkit on the added value of youth volunteering in local development context (IO2) based on the key findings which emerged from the first activity (IO1). This production will in the future enable volunteering organisations (national and European) to have tools to raise awareness and encourage young people to volunteer but also to raise awareness among youth workers and local actors about the skills that can be enhanced through volunteering experiences in local development.The third production (IO3) will design a competences framework for the skills that could be acquire in local development volunteering experiences using innovative digital badges methodology. This third IO will give sustainability to the transfer of the toolkits (IO1 and IO2), giving the opportunity to the youth workers to capitalize what they have experienced and learnt for the benefit of the youth they work with.Furthermore, two learning and training activities will be organised: one short-term staff training in order to aware and upskils youth workers on local development and social innovation initiatives as incubators for transversal key competences, and a blended mobility for young people to experiment design thinking methodology and contribute in the IO3.ResultsCreation of innovative tools for the validation of the competencies acquired through voluntary activities in local development Experimentation by the youth workers on the use of the innovative developed tools in particular digital open badgesCreation of a connection between the experience of volunteering in local development and the labor market. Dissemination of tools and experiences of the project among all subjects potentially interested: public institutions, local development stakeholders and volunteersExpected impactA bigger awareness about volunteering as useful way for the entrance into labor market The ability to valorize in job seeking the transversal competences learned in local development volunteeringAwareness of the importance of educating and acting for a more sustainable local developmentA higher sense of belonging to the European Union and the desire to get involved in European activities and motilitiesFinally the potential longer term benefits. - Enhancing skills of youth workers in the local development field- Facilitate the access to employment of the youth volunteers- Help the target groups to develop a renovated sense of shared and common European values and identity;- Improve the level of communication, coordination and joint work between the institutions involved, promoting and enhancing good practices, both at national (for the partner’s countries) and European level

<< Objectives >>Raise awareness about the impact of poor resilience, adaptability and learnability skills on job satisfaction, quality of work, mental and physical health•Identifying when and how to implement effectively these three core skills•Achieving successful work-life balance•Develop and enhance resilience,adaptability and learnability skills in young employees•Train employers to develop fostering work places•Develop quality training materials•Capacity building and networking on an EU level.<< Implementation >>Establish an expert work committee of key individuals in each partner country•Focus groups in each country to record needs of young employees and mental health challenges and exchange good coping strategies•Pilot-testing to finalize project’s 'How To' kits for employees and employers and the e-learning platoform•Trainings in each country using these kits•Structured discussions in each partner country•Host online meetings•Conduct a comprehensive dissemination online campaign.<< Results >>R1:A comprehensive e-learning platform pertaining R2•R2:: 'How To' kits for yougn employees abd employers•R3: An e-campaign providing awareness on work burn-out, ways of thriving at work, how to create non-toxic work environments, and ways of enhancing resilience and adaptability and learnability skills in young employees•Additionally:Project Plan•Partnership agreements•Website•Online dissemination materials•Progress reports

<< Objectives >>Raise awareness about the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of youth in the partner countries and Europe•Promote the importance of mental health •Recognition and identification of mental health issues by youth workers and youth•Build resilient, adaptability skills in youth•Develop quality resources aiming at preventing mental health deterioration and providing coping strategies for overcome mental health difficulties•Improve the quality of youthwork in the participating countries<< Implementation >>Establish group committee of key youth sector individuals in each partner country•Focus groups in each country to record mental health needs and challenges of youth and identify mental health red flags used to recognize mental health issues•Focus groups to exchange good coping strategies•Pilot-testing to finalize project’s tools•Trainings in each country using RAY’s tools•Structured discussions in each partner country•Host online meetings•Conduct a comprehensive dissemination campaign.<< Results >>R1:ToolKit for youthworkers: Building resilient and adaptability skills in the young•R2: SurvivalManual for the young: recognizing when something is wrong, ways of coping and reacting•R3: An online awareness mental heath campaign on prevention of mental health adversity, coping strategies, and ways of enhancing resilience and adaptability in the young•Additionally:Project Plan•Partnership agreements•Website•Online dissemination materials•Progress reports

<< Objectives >>The main goals of the project are:-An increasing active approach to citizenship among young people.-Exchange and share different methods of participation among the partners involved. -Providing Youth Workers with knowledge, tools, and experiences to enhance their capability in order to promote active citizenship with their young people through blended methodology with the focus on gamification-Raising awareness of the support the EU provides for young people to achieve their goals among the<< Implementation >>There will be local activities, interviews with decission makers and youth workers to compare their perspectives about ideas and innitiatives. We will have a seminar with 16 youth workers, 4 per partner to share and compare the results about surveys perspective. After that we will ellaborate materials, games and a tool-kit plus a final evaluation event in the municipality of CInisello with 2 youth workers from every country<< Results >>- a website for sharing Youth innitiatives to increase and share participation and active citizenship in decission making- - An increase in awareness of youth, about active citizenship and participation, how to be more active and what tools from the EU they can use - measured by surveys among youthAt least 30 young people will have directly been trained in gamification and active citizenship method

"How much do coworking spaces really contribute to developing competences, social inclusion and employability for young people? How and how much can they promote solidarity, youth protagonism, involvement, participation? If instead, as it looks like, these experiences are not so effective, which innovations could improve the impact of what is promoted by these “new spaces” for youth?In business-oriented coworking spaces, the management often ends up considering social impact as a side effect and/or a corporate social responsibility - based marketing strategy. Employees in charge of managing spaces, activities and projects may be skilled on new labour market trends, but often, not very much on connecting with the community at a local level.In social innovation-oriented coworking spaces, the management instead might use some business strategies just to get a sort of quality award in the eyes of their users. Employees in charge of managing spaces, activities and projects are often expert in social intervention but so, they may be more inclined towards looking for public support and funding, than towards entrepreneurial attitudes and self-sustainability.Successful experiences show that interaction among the users/inhabitants of a coworking space cannot be left to chance; specific methodologies and tools are needed, in order to improve interaction and synergies among these users: some social work must be put in motion here. More often, although, coworking spaces tend to become closed systems which only relate to labour market, limiting social interventions to simple marketing value or avoiding them completely. Co(youth)working project idea is to empower coworking spaces and networks to reach a relevant social impact on their local context, to assure economical self-sustainability and support effective development of entrepreneurial skills by youth hosted in the spaces. We aim at opening coworking spaces to new relationships, putting them in an ongoing dialogue either with their young users, and with surrounding local communities, improving participation, active citizenship, local development of human and social capital.Specific project objectives are:1. outline the role of the youth worker as a key figure in the management of a coworking space, identifying the necessary skills and the training and development path for them; in fact we aim at enhancing the animative actions and the youth work approach to support young entrepreneurs and new startups on the one hand, and human, social and economic development of local communities on the other;2. propose a tool, a useful guide for organizations that want to open a coworking space (or innovate the existing one), that is the synthesis of the partners' experiences: a collection of recommendations, tools, activities, possible resources and risks (and possible solutions to be adopted to overcome them);3. enhance the role and involvement of public bodies and territorial networks in the management of coworking spaces, so as to facilitate dialogue between stakeholders, provide a broader view of the society in which they are inserted, monitor the processes in their continuity, coherence and long-term impact on the territories;4. define a cross-sector strategy for coworking spaces management, combining attention to social impact with support to development of startup enterprises hosted in the spaces.The actions will develop in 3 phases:PHASE 1 - September / December 2019:in this phase we will build two working groups that will collect (October) the characteristics of the coworking spaces / networks involved and the indicators to evaluate their functioning; a local survey activity will follow, which then (December) will be pooled to build a unique benchmarking.PHASE 2 - January / May 2020:in this phase we will carry out a training course (January) on the skills (hard and soft) that a youth worker must possess to animate a coworking space, transforming it into a relevant subject for the social impact on the territory and ensuring together the economic sustainability. Following what was learned during the training course will be tested in different territories (until April), and then meet in a mid-term meeting (May) in which the coordinators monitor the progress of the project.PHASE 3 - June - December 2020:in this phase the guidelines will be built (June) to be disseminated in the territories (until October). A final event will then be held (November) and a final evaluation and follow-up meeting, in the hypothetical form of a training course for future operators, to create a network of ""social oriented"" coworking spaces."