"The project ”Book of life – Write your own bestseller” is a strategic partnership project hat aims to achieve transnational and cross-sectoral cooperation in order to develop, test and implement innovative non-formal methods of working with young adults, through a combination of expressive techniques, in order to increase their involvement in community life, to motivate them to become the architects of their own lives and to teach them how to gain independence to build a healthy lifestyle, from a personal and a professional point of view.The specific objectives that meet the general purpose are:O1. Increasing the capacity of young people to reach the planning and implementation of a healthy lifestyle (physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally) through the use of innovative expressive tools in the process of personal and professional development.O2. Increasing the quality of non-formal activities in the youth field by elaborating, testing and disseminating a toolkit for personal and professional development for young people, as well as an integrated intervention program that youth workers can use to develop the decision-making capacity of young people for an independent and fulfilled life.O3. Increasing the organizational capacity of 5 European youth organizations, to use non-formal tools focused on the personal development of young people and to create sustainable working methodologies in the youth field.The main issues from which the development of this project started was the increased age of young adults in launching later in independent life (over 28 years old, according to the latest Eurostat statistics) and with more and more problems related to the incidence of unemployment (15.2%), professional frustrations and re-professionalization after the age of 30 (for example, within the coordinating organization, Gamma Institute, over 50% of the trainees in psychotherapy are over 35 years old and come to classes as a re-professionalization after practicing professions that did not bring them personal satisfaction, besides financial security), the incidence of anxiety disorders and depression among young people (WHO declared that by 2020 the first cause of disabling diseases, the percentage among the young people being an increase - 27%) and the negative influence on the development of the family plan (increasing the marriage age, postponing the birth of the first child). This problem is a global one, not just a European one, and the 5 partner organizations have noticed all these problems in the young adults they work with, and, lately, they have also noticed a decrease in the motivation of the youth workers to remain in the long term in this area, because, often, their efforts to motivate and stimulate young people to follow a healthy lifestyle has no long-term effect.The solution that the partners from this project thought of was to offer a broader perspective on the approach of life in general by young adults, through integrative, expressive tools, to follow their learning style: providing information in an easy way, like tips & tricks for healthy life, a life planner they can use to organize and learn to set some efficient (SMART) goals, a website with integrated resources, where young people can find information from many areas of life (health, education, sports, culture, etc.) and a guide regarding the choice of personal and professional route through sketching and therapeutic metaphor. All of these tools will be included in a toolkit, which will serve as a ""toolkit for life"" that will be available to young people when they want to build and implement their future plans. The personal development toolkit ""The book of Life"" includes a healthy launch manual for independent living, addressed to young people, a booklet with individual worksheets distributed on skills such as financial, time management, resources, management of intense emotions, a life planner (agenda type), and a third part that includes an 18-hour personal development program, which can be implemented by youth workers and a web platform with resources for youth and youth workers, with information and guidance for implementing a healthy lifestyle, physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally."

The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The last few years have witnessed a big part of the burden of austerity being heaped onto the shoulders of the continent’s young people. We, the project group, felt there was a need to look into this and see if we, in our professions, could contribute towards something positive.This project was based on a couple of identified needs that we observed in the various participating countries. First, we saw a need for more effective and innovative instruments to encourage young people to become more aware and educated on how to manage one’s private economy. To become financially literate, to put it differently. This need was in large part based on the financial difficulties much of Europe has been going through over the last several years, and which persists still. Second, we found it to be an ongoing need to have more competence and understanding of conflict management among young people. We see clear links between the macro- and the micro level on this topic. Lastly, we had an idea of combining these two areas to attempt to provide concrete tools, especially to group of young people with fewer opportunities, to deal more constructively with troubling situations of financial difficulty without resorting to conflict.Communication about the initial ideas started between a few of the partners who knew each other well from a long list of previous collaborations. The project rationale and a couple of concrete ideas were then shared down the network of acquainted trainers, youth workers and organisations. All partners have been involved in this project based on their special competence or experience related to one or both of the concrete tools the project group wanted to develop. The centrepiece of this project has been to develop and produce two educational and interactive board games, to address financial literacy and conflict management - “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”, respectively.The project has been undertaken with 10 formal partners, with one external partner that has also been involved throughout the whole project - including holding a crucial role in the actual production of all the game pieces for what has become “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”. It was an important criterion for us that all the involved organisations, companies and informal groups are involved as directly as possible in field youth work or local community building.The results include that each partner now is in possession of 1 complete set of “Mission Z” and 4 complete sets of “Real Ideal”, attractively designed and formed in multipurpose materials. All game pieces have been handmade in a village in Portugal, and has thus created some employment during the project period, as well as improved the capacity of the same village and its people to produce more output of a similar sort in the future.Our testing of the concepts for both games has been rigorous. In total we have tested the two games with 653 participants who have all provided us with written feedback. This has enabled us to modify the games during the project period and adjust for input offered to us by the actual target group for both games, the young people themselves. The feedback from these participants has been overwhelmingly positive, across the board. This is the main thing for us, and gives us a feeling of having contributed well to the field of youth work and non-formal learning methods.The outputs of this project has also reached other circles, such as banks and universities that are keen on utilising these games in their education of financial literacy and conflict management, respectively. Some concrete partnerships along these lines have already been formalised.For more, and updated information also after the project’s end, we invite the reader to visit our website: http://bb-games.eu

The main objective of ACTin’YouTH is to foster youth workers’ intercultural competences with theatrical methodologies aimed at creating local theatre workshops for the social inclusion of young people with different cultural background at risk of social exclusion. In fact, youth workers will gain competences also in the field of non-violent communication, conflict resolution, facilitation and will develop their communicative skills through theatrical methodologies as well as storytelling circles, thus improving intercultural communication competences and innovative approaches for the engagement of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, in order to tackle discrimination and social exclusion. All the acquired skills will be used during the implementation of both local and blended theatre workshops. At the same time, there is a strong emphasis on the protagonism and leadership of the young participants in each phase of the project, as to boost their competences effectively. In nowadays interconnected world, it’s urgent to assure that younger generations really communicate and interact amongst them and it’s also important to search for methods improving mutual collaboration and participation. We believe that intercultural dialogue among young people can highly benefit from creativity and performing methodologies, since they learn how to put into practice intercultural dialogue and gain an alternative way of expressing themselves and the cultural features of the groups they belong to.In particular, theatre and performing arts can lead to an active experimentation of the intercultural dialogue power, experiencing the opportunity to work on self-knowledge, body-language and creativity, by acting and interacting together in the same framework, even though they don’t know each other, or they don’t speak the same language or share the same social and cultural framework.Specific objectives are: - develop a theatre-based training course for improving youth workers’ intercultural competences and social skills, aimed at engaging and involving young people- carry on local intercultural theatre workshops and related on-line activities;- create a cooperative final “digital performance”;- develop a collaborative interactive platform and tools;- produce a methodological manual with a collection of case studies based on local experiences.As a result, we will have:1) 24 TRAINED YOUTH WORKERS from 6 different countries on intercultural and theatre-based communication methodologies2) YOUNG PEOPLE with a different cultural background, taking part to the local activities, will experiment an engaging opportunity to interact with other young people, finding common ways of communication, interaction, mutual understanding and collaboration.So, they will gain- experience in a TARGETED METHODOLOGY to improve their intercultural communication competences that can be useful also for their future professional path and employability potential,- specific TRAINING in the methodology, that they will replicate in local activities led by themselves together with the Youth Workers,- TRANSNATIONAL LEARNING AND TRAINING EXPERIENCE which itself is a great way to make young people aware of the richness of the intercultural encounter.3) INTERACTIVE PLATFORM, to make participants from all partners countries exchange their ideas, their outcomes and their materials on the ongoing activities (at local and transnational level), that will remain after the project’s lifespan as a repository of good practices developed during the project and as e-training tool for further Youth Workers and Young People who’d like to approach the methodology. The platform will also be the digital environment where young people, led by youth workers, will develop, starting from inputs given by the non-formal education sessions, the open, transnational and collaborative theatrical performance online. 4) MANUAL that will collect the results of the projects, the specific challenges and solutions implemented, in order to further spread it at national and international level, particularly addressed to Youth Organisations and Public Authorities that should be interested in creating local intercultural workshops aimed at social inclusion of young people. 5) VIRTUAL NETWORK of all organisations, associations, informal youth groups working with theatre and performative arts as tools for social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.6) INTERNATIONALIZATION OF A NEW METHODOLOGY: through the project, the methodology developed by the partner organisations, gathering together their different experiences in the field of social inclusion, will be tested, qualified and recognised in a transnational context with specific target groups and thus become transferable and replicable in other contexts.

Best practices Exchange for youth Trainers in the field of Sharing Economy and Ecology (BETSEE) aims at exchanging best practices in the field of ecological education with a special focus on “green” sharing economy among organizations that are all expert in youth education, each with a focus on a different target group. will focus on environmental education and “green” sharing economy to improve the youth workers’ teaching competences and increase, at once, disadvantaged youth’ soft skills. The idea of implementing this exchange of best practices was born from the need observed by the project partners of supporting youth educators in adopting an innovative methodology able to teach young people how to be eco-responsible in order to tackle climate change and waste. In Europe the overconsumption of goods has reached levels that are no longer sustainable and that are bringing to major environmental issues. According to the European Commission, “we currently use 16 tons of material per person per year, of which 6 tons become waste”. Learning what new “green” practices are and how sharing economy works can also be beneficial for disadvantaged younger people who have difficulties in finding their way into the job world. By studying ecological practices and by learning what sharing economy is and its advantages for future young entrepreneurs, young people with fewer opportunities will have the chance to acquire soft skills useful for their integration in the job marker, for instance, they can develop critical thinking by reflecting on the importance to reduce waste and to avoid intensive production/consuming behaviors; they can increase their entrepreneurial skills by learning about the sharing economy businesses and so on. BETSEE will organize 4 Study Visits in each partner country to exchange good practices on how to train youth workers to give classes focusing on “green” sharing economy and green habits among youth, encouraging, at the same time the development of their soft skills to succeed in life and work. Once partners’ educators will have observed best practices implemented in the other partners’ countries, they will organize Local Activities in their communities to promote sharing economy and green habits among young people from disadvantaged groups with limited access to non-formal education offer. Thanks to the observation of best practices for teaching “green” sharing economy, the partner organizations will be able to collect the best methods for youth education in the BETSEE Green E-Manual. This Manual is the central product of the project and will include 2 sections: section 1 with the methodology and best practices on how to develop and deliver courses about “green” sharing economy and ecological practices also promoting the acquisition of soft skills among disadvantaged youth and section 2 listing the latest “green” sharing economy tools and apps in each partners’ country. Therefore, BETSEE proposes to use the best practices of experienced youth organizations, each one focusing on a specific target group of youth (young people from the suburbs, unemployed young women, young people from rural areas and foreigners and migrants), to train youth workers teaching to young people soft skills (critical thinking, entrepreneurial skills, ICTs, curiosity, communication, etc.) to develop ecological behaviors thanks to “green” sharing economy. Finally, the International training of BETSEE will help young people and youth workers to consolidate their knowledge acquired during the learning process started in the beginning of the project.

<< Background >>We live in time of unprecedented change in education. The pandemic forced all educators to teach remotely with online learning. The crisis caused by Covid 19 has exposed manyinadequacies and inequities in education and the pandemic has hit the most vulnerable the hardest.The project wants to focus on 2 aspects that are combined. The first is CREATIVITY - creative problem solving, it will facilitate the process of boosting creativity. Thesecond aspect is distance/digital learning which is a must in pandemic and afterpandemic times. According to research on CREATIVE COMPETENCES in partners' countries of youth trainers ( research was conducted in 09/10 2020- 30 youth trainers participated and 10 interviews with young leaders, with partners stakeholders as well as betweenpartners staff ( 50 respondents). All partners cooperate with YOUTH teachers and trainers on regular basis. Research Methods – CATI, surveys send by email, in-depth interviews anddesk research. It gave an overview of the situation in YOUTH sector. The reasearch touched also the needs of learners as the survey was also madeamongs YOUTH. The results were that education does not strengthen the competence in creative thinking. The education, work requires them to be creative, think design but also beable to work with teams (Ocean Eleven teams). Unfortunately, this is not what systems in partnership countries teach them. Thrown into the standard thinking of competence tests,they are unable to solve tasks in an unconventional way, which is often required of us not only in professional work but also in solving everyday problems. It is expected that in thefuture many jobs will be replaced by robots. It is also a challenge for education so that young people who leave the school walls can adapt to the new reality and easily retrain ifnecessary. For these types of activities, they need broadly defined creativity, ability to solve problems and unconventional thinking, which we want to teach them during workshops.THE RESEARCH RESULTS ALSO SAID- YOUTH TRAINERS, LEADERS, WORKERS:- 80% of respondents have a lack of skills and knowlledge on learning startegies connected with digital learning, online and remote learning,- the majority of them feel frustrated by the fact that they are not supported in the digital education, they cannot renew their skills, they do not know what can facilitate the online, digitaleducationa and they do not know the software available.- The main problem reported in each country was the problem with learners engagement and problem with inclusion of all learners.- THEY NEED NEW approach, creativity, tool to trigger motivation- the need of ready to use tools and materialsThe project responds also on partners' needs that are knowledge on creativity and distance learning, new offer for partners' learners and partners' target groups, new educationalmaterials, new approach in trainings, advising youth, and a need for self development and a need for new competences to adjust to a new education caused by panndemic Covid 19.<< Objectives >>The aim of the project is to empower youth trainers, youth workers, young leaders and educators with tools to boost youth creativity and to enhance directly the youth creativity bycreative techniques and to support the creative competences of students and teamwork competence. The indirect target group of this project are young people who need a newcreative approach to education, to everyday life, to have a new idea how to adapt to new reality. YOUTH also need a sustainable approach to education, work and life as they areconscious about environment and climate change ( the research showed that) We need creativity to solve existing problems/ to reinvent our world in these difficult times, to expressourselves. Creativity also enhance our well being. It is nowadays difficult to live in uncertainty, with a lot of anxiety and perturbations, worriesbut at the same time hope and aspirations. To help young people and their teachers/trainers to deal with everyday problems, to focus more on sustainability and environment , to bemore innovative and self develop - the creativity is needed.THE GOAL OF THE PROJECT is to equip YOUTH teachers and trainers, YOUTH workers, leaders and educators in partnership countries ( and by using e-learning tools in EuropeanUnion and worldwide) with tools and knowledge on how to deploy remote learning programmes, using CREATIVITY, CREATIVE TECHNIQUES and a mix of technologies and how to combine it with relevant and end engaging content, a well articulated instructionalmodel, effective teaching presence and learner support. The project goal is to equip target groups with tools to design and facilitate digital and distance(remote) learning, toadapt digital competences and build capacity of YOUTH teach/trainers to implement online teaching and learning by using special methodology, creative technics, inclusive learning,elearning.<< Implementation >>Working on the project will allow young people and their trainers, leaders and educators to better integrate and will give them tools for their future professional work. As predicted byforcaster, we must learn to work as a team and be ready for constant changes. Not only in the current job but also changes in the professional path. We must be creative and open towhat is happening around us.We are the change and we can change the world. Creativity and non-standard thinking are an essential skill of future. Creativity will help infinding solutions to make apositive impact on our Planet. The project will develop the following results:PR1 HANDBOOK ON CREATIVE MINDSET - The handbook is aimed to be used by youth trainers, youth workers, young leaders and educators in order to carry on trainings andworkshops on creativity in the digital era. It will combine digital learning with enhancing creativity. The guidelines will cover and develop:- pedagogical skills - guidelines will contain useful methodology to teach remotely using online learning; - methods to facilitate the digital/ distance learning - learning startegies conbined with learning styles and with methodologies developed,- technological skills PR2 READY TO USE SCENARIOS - The output will develop and gather creative WORKSHOP scenarios for youth trainers, youth workers, young leaders, educators and partners' staffaccompanied creative technics embeded in workshop scenarios based on the subjects gathered in IO1 with the aim to empower youth with technics to be creative, to giveteachers/trainers a ready to use tool. The scenarios will focus on green and sustainability. Creativity helps us with dealing with work/life problems and see the situation from the otherside. Target groups will gain knowledge about creativity, where does it come from, how can we develop creativity within ourselves?IO3 eLEARNING FOR CREATIVE MINDSET The aim of this output is to develop eLearning course on the eLearning platform, create eLearning CREATIVE MINDSET platform tailormade for the project to support the digital and distance teaching and learning. OUTPUTS developed in IO1, IO2 and IO4 will be uploaded on platform in a form of eLearning Modules,gradually. The modules will be done in SCRUM and EdTech methodology.PR4 TRAINING THE TRAINERS WORKSHOPS This Intellectual Output consists in a comprehensive package of tools for the youth trainers, youth workers, young leaders andeducators as facilitators of the enhancing creativity by combining workshops with creative technics with distance and digital learning. This package is targeted to the youth trainers,youth workers, young leaders and educators who will provide accompaniment and workshop to the creativity process.QUALITY ASSURANCE PLAN and project evaluation – this package results consists in the following tems:- Quality Assurance Plan-evaluation reports (1st managing expectation, 2nd for progress and final)- Permanent stakeholders consultation- Permanent quality control of all activities and events implemented during the project.Sharing, Promotion, use of results, DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION- Dissemination & Expl. Plan- 2 Dissemination reports- Project Website.- Regular Newsletters, each 6 months- Articles and other publishing material in 4 languages ( English, Portuguese, French and Polish)- Multiplier events in each country- Pilot/workshops targeted to public in generalnvolved consisting in “exploitation” workshops with th- Agreement for the sustainability of the partnership and OutputsPROJECT MANAGEMENT PACKAGE:- 4 meetings and correspondent agendas,- Reporting package including financial and quality feed-back from the partners- reports to be submitted to National Agency<< Results >>The youth education is currently facing the lack of updated didactic methodologies for upskilling the youth trainers/ workers/leaders/educators towards creativity and for attracting young to the education. Working on the project will allow them to better integrate and will give them tools for their future professional work. As predicted by forcaster, we must learn to work as a team and be ready for constant changes. Not only in the current job but also changes in the professional path. We must be creative and open to what is happening around us. We are the change and we can change the world. Creativity and non-standard thinking are an essential skill of future.Each partner organisation will strongly benefit from widening their European contextual knowledge of topics relating to boosting youth creativity and design thinking. They will have the opportunity to meet people from other organisations actively working to support YOUTH sector and improve their creativity in the workplace - using different approaches and methods.Partner organisations will furthermore exchange ideas, knowledge, experience and good practice during and after the project, resulting in increased EU-wide understanding and knowledge of Human Centered Design.SUCCESS INDICATORS Long-term impact will become visible after the project ends:- no. of youth inspired to change, to be creative more that 80%- no. of ideas with a focus on sustainability in youth more than 80%- No. of educational institutions recognising the success of developed tools updating and transfering the materials developed - target 6- project results used as an incentive for other projects,- project results used by partners on regular bacis and updated regularly within trainings,- new cooperation between partners within the area of creativity and design thinking- No. of educational institutions successfully using the project results - 10 - 5 years after the end of the project- No. of trainers using the resources provided by the project - 60 one year after the projectIMPACT ON PARTICIPATING ORGANISATIONSA questionnaire evaluating the perceived quality of the consortium, management and project will be collected from partners every 6 months. The importance of the project activities’impact on the partner’s organisations and work culture will be measured by the indicators:- Integration of the project activities into partners organizations - target 3 organizations;- new collaborations during the project lifetime among the consortium - target 2- skills acquired/improved by staff; teamwork, competences in foreign languages, problem solving, creativity, design thinking;- satisfaction of the project PRs - more than 80%