<< Background >>The project targets youth workers and young people, especially NEETs, who need to be prepared to face the current needs of the youth sector after the COVID-19 pandemic, including a feeling of belonging to our society, more and improved digital skills, a higher level of creativity to adapt to the new reality and more awareness of the situation NEETs are experiencing. Over the last years, the rate of young Europeans who are neither employed nor studying is very high and, under this rather alarming situation, the European Union has been following several strategies to face youth unemployment and social exclusion over the last years. Even though young generations are blamed for their situation and their incapability to fit in the labour market, the truth is that the lack of opportunities, the lack of training offer and resources, or the lack of motivating paths for them are contributing to worsen the situation. Young people are strongly keen on new technologies, social media, and online activities. The current COVID19 pandemic has made more evident than ever that the youth do not depend on technologies only in a “leisure-time” perspective, but in many others. Many educators have pointed out that art is a great means for people to express themselves and to connect to others. Art goes beyond its entertaining capacity and widens people’s ability to communicate, to express and exteriorize their thoughts and to create bonds with their community. Thus, combining ART and digital technologies is an innovative path that needs to be explored further. The project aims at boosting youth workers’ knowledge and competences, which in this new digital-art field will help them sympathize with the youth and, thus reinforce their motivation, self-esteem, and belief in themselves, becoming more capable of entering the labour market and/or taking an active role in the society. It will contribute to create DIVERSE and ICLUSIVE communities by improving the quality of youth work, both equipping youth workers with the competences and skills needed and empowering the youth. The project will pay special attention to the youth feeling of integration into society, prioritizing the DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL SKILLS THROUGH CREATIVITY AND ART, and raising awareness about the importance of SOCIAL INCLUSION among young NEETS. The project aims at boosting skills, competences and knowledge of youth workers of ICT tools, to create INCLUSIVE environments in their daily practice. This initiative will also contribute to the generation of more positive feelings and attitudes in European societies towards these NEETs, often victims of stereotypes that lead to social exclusion. Thus, priority will be given to the promotion of social inclusion and the construction of a Europe more aware of the situation of this sector.With the aim of improving youth work, the project will use digital technologies with a creative and artistic perspective to promote social inclusion, something that should be prioritized by any person, entity or institution active in the youth field. To do so, the project will develop a Training KIT that will focus on digital art which will target youth workers. This will be followed by the creation of an App targeting young people with an educational game, with a pedagogic microstructure based on a systemic scan and collection of NEETs needs, interests, and trends. The last product of the project will be the establishment of youth networks for visioning, modelling and planning of medium-term community actions in the field of Digital Art.<< Objectives >>The objectives that the project seeks to achieve are: •Raise awareness about the importance of resilience among the youth through their active participation in non-formal and informal cultural and artistic activities•Improve the quality of youth work by using new and innovative tools that support the creative potential of youth. •Reinforce youth workers’ skills and competences to boost social inclusion of the youth •Improve youth access to the labour market by enhancing their artistic and creative skills and competences via new tools and technologies•Promote active citizenship among young people through artistic and cultural non-formal and informal activities•Develop learning/training materials for youth workers including new techniques and strategies to merge digital tools and art•Raise awareness on social issues (especially related to NEETs) at an EU level by taking part in online networking activitiesIn the long term, the project aims at improving competencies of youth and social workers, trainers, tutors, mentors, young people, youth associations and organisations, public bodies and partner organisations to deal with the project specific topics (digital skills, creativity and art in non-formal and informal education settings, youth work in general, etc.) thanks to their increase in transversal skills (digital, artistic, professional,) and the ability to deal with social inclusion and diversity in their communities, through a better understanding of NEETs’ and youth workers’ necessities and their educational opportunities. Partners also expect that, at a local level, the objectives to be reached are:- more young people involved in life-long learning - better dialogue between local/regional actors in youth, artistic and educational sectors;-more youth workers aware of the situation of NEETs; -reinforce competences of youth workers and reinforced interactions and closer links between them and young people from their community. At a national level, the partnership aims to: -increase competences of relevant actors in the youth sector;-increase new and innovative training opportunities for the development of digital skills and artistic and creative competences of young people; -create more synergies in partner communities among all agents involved in the youth and educational sectors. At an EU level, the objective is to disseminate partners’ good practices and establish new contacts with youth organisations, departments, and informal groups of young people within the EU; promote the recognition of the potential benefits that dialogue and cooperation and international networking have towards the improvement of the youth sectors both for individuals and for organisations; and improve the interactions between the education and training and youth sectors, the project expects to promote existing EU and national programs concerning education and social inclusion in the labour market of NEETs.<< Implementation >>1) PROJECT MONITORING ACTIVITIES:- 3 transnational meetings with 10 participants each;- Online meetings every 2 months; - Regular quality monitoring activities as described in the Quality Control plan (monitoring questionnaires, meeting of the Quality Assurance Committee…);- Elaboration of Quality Reports every 6 months. (2) ACTIVITIES RELATED TO RESULTS/PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: 1st Project result: Development of an online Training KIT for youth workers on Digital Art, structured in 7 main activities: A1. Mapping of digital and creative competences and capacities of youth workers in partner countries and at European level A2. Development of the methodology and training framework of the online KITA3. Preparation of the content of the online training kit for youth workersA4. Design of a set of Open Badges for the validation of youth workers' competences in a non-formal and informal contextA5. Organisation of an internal evaluation phase of the material A6. Organisation of a pilot test of the KIT with at least 10 youth workers in each country A7. Creation of an e-learning platform to integrate all the products developed.2nd Project result: Design and programming of an App, an educational game for Young Digital Artists, with a pedagogic macrostructure based on a systemic scan and collection of NEETs needs, interests, and trends, structured in 5 main activities: A1. Systemic scan and collection of NEETs needs, interests, and trends.A2. Definition and creation of the microstructure of the App: learning objectives, learning content and general pedagogic frameworkA3. Design and development of the macrostructure of the online gameA4. Organisation of pilot testing of the game at local levelA5. Fine-tuning and implementation of improvements and elaboration of a manual for youth workers 3rd Project results: Establishement of youth networks for visioning, modelling and planning of mèdium-term community actions in the field of Digital Art, structured in 5 main activities: A1. Organisation of working groups of experts: visioning and modelling A2. Establishment of networks: planning of medium-term community actions A3. Implementation of local actions A4. Creation of international networks: cooperation for replication of the local actions A5. Elaboration of a Youth Local Actions collection(3) DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: - Regular dissemination activities as described in the Dissemination Plan. - 4 multiplier events with at least 20 local participants in each, 80 in total. (4) EXPLOITATION & SUSTAINABILITY ATCIVITIES 1. Elaboration of exploitation and sustainability plans2. Exploitation of extended stakeholders and target contact databases that each partner brings into the consortium;3. Use of relevant media channels (local media vs. more marketing oriented communication);4. Working towards the sustainability of the project's products through the open and accessible format of the open education platform.5. Use of partners and stakeholders’ web sites.6. Incorporation of developed materials and courses in the regular activities of partners and associated partners, especially those who have participated in any stage of the project.7. Multiplication of project results through both youth workers and young people: conferences, presentations, face-to-face meetings, informal meetings at local/community level. 8. Organisation of informative events and meeting with responsible representatives for decision-making in local, regional, national or European educational institutions9. Maintaining the project consortium. Some of the partners have already worked together on previous projects and are committed to cooperate in the future.<< Results >>EXPECTED RESULTS: During the project and once completed, partners are expected to: •Carry out a mapping of youth workers’ skills and competences in each partner country and at European level•Establish the methodology and the training framework of the online training KIT on Digital Art•Prepare the online training KIT for youth workers•Design a set of Open Badges for the competencies’ validation of youth workers in a non-formal and informal context•Design and carry out an internal evaluation phase of the materials•Conduct a pilot test of the KIT with at least 10 youth workers in each country - minimum 50 in total•Define the training content and pedagogical structure of the online training game for Youth Digital Artists•Design and develop the macro structure of the online training game•Conduct at least 3 training sessions with 15 young people at the local level using the online training game - minimum 75 young people in total•Establish youth networks at EU level to cooperate in the organisation of community actions •Create an online learning platform that includes all materials and products developed•Organize 3 transnational meetings: (1) in Latvia in November 2021, (2) in Rome (Italy) in December 2022, and (3) in Skopje (Rep. North Macedonia) in December 2023. •Organize 4 multipliers events, with a minimum of 20 participants in each, after completion of the three IOs in Reus (Spain), Rome (Italy), and Réunion (France), in Skopje (Rep. North Macedonia) in November 2023. LONG TERM RESULTS: -More youth workers will be better prepared to work with NEETs-Increase and improvement of the training offer for youth workers in EU countries-More awareness about the need to have social commitment with the youth and reduce the obstacles they have to be an active part of the society-Improved skills of youth workers to foster creativity and artistic expression of the youth -More general knowledge by the whole society about digital art and its potential as a tool for social and labour inclusion-Improved digital skills of youth workers and young people, specially linked to art and creative expression -More networks established between partner countries communities including youth workers, young people and relevant actors in the youth sector -Improve the commitment of local communities to the social inclusion of NEETs by the implementation of local actions that foster mutual understanding and increase the provision of spaces to support them.