‘YCreate: Voices for respect, celebrating difference and tackling hate' is a transnational, cross-sectoral Strategic Partnership for Creativity in the field of Youth. The focus of YCreate is on equipping young people - and the youth workers who support them in a range of non-formal and 'out of school' youth work contexts - to counteract hate speech and behaviour, disinformation and misinformation targeted at minorities and vulnerable communities - through creative, arts-based and participatory activities that foster active citizenship and socially responsible actions.Hate Speech (HS) is defined by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation 97/20 as any form of expression that spreads, incites, promotes or justifies forms of hatred based on intolerance. UNESCO (June 2020) considered COVID 19 an information crisis that resulted from high quantity of misinformation available and the low capacity to understand its veracity. Unsubstantiated online information during the pandemic has led to a rise of hate speech and hate crimes targeted against minorities and vulnerable groups. This is a social challenge exacerbated by the Covid19 pandemic - UN General-Secretary, António Guterres, appealing to address hate speech, stressed that “We must act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate” , highlighting that “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.” Yet the Covid-19 crisis has raised alert, yet again, on the invisibility and absence of opportunities for youth from decision-making processes on matters that directly affect their lives. The YCreate methodology focuses on three tiers of participant. First, 20 youth workers and tutors from non-formal education, training and youth stakeholders with community arts and cultural sector grassroots organisations will work together transnationally to develop new participatory and learning methods on issues of counteracting hate speech and misinformation through cultural practice. Second, 50 young creatives – performers, writers and aspiring producers – aged 14-21 are capacitated and trained to act as youth leaders and mentors to their peers, addressing issues of respect, celebrating difference and tackling hate through music in a variety of genres, songwriting, drama and dance. Third, 500 children and young people, at school or in youth work settings aged 11-18 are empowered through the YCreate approach to find their own voices through sketches, songs, animations and participation designed to combat hate speech and misinformation through intercultural dialogue and exchange. Through this process, the partners will prepare new contents for testing and validation with the target groups, capturing the experiences in the UK, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy to produce three brand new Intellectual Outputs:- IO1 YCreate Development Curriculum Programme - improving the competences and skills of European youth workers, tutors, facilitators and community artists to empower young creatives as peer mentors counteracting hate speech and misinformation through artistic and creative participatory action- IO2 YCreate Peer Mentoring Community Action Toolkit - guidance and resources for and co-designed by young creatives – performers, writers and aspiring producers –to act as youth leaders and peer mentors. It will enable them to be innovators in cultural and artistic community interventions with children, pupils and youth, counteracting hate speech, behaviour and misinformation towards minorities and vulnerable groups- IO3 YCreate Crisis Communication Online Human Library - this output has at its core the human library concept bringing it to the digital environment by creating an OER platform for knowledge exchange and good practices in contexts of crisis.Ultimately, reinforced by a comprehensive programme of dissemination, its longer-term results are aimed at equipping Europe’s young people - and the youth work and educational organisations that support them in a range of non-formal 'out of school' youth work contexts as well as with teachers in schools - with innovative, collaborative practices and resources to counteract hate speech, behaviour and disinformation, online and offline, through creative, arts-based, social responsible actions. Therefore, the title of YCreate reflects the 2 main pillars upon which YCreate is built:- Artistic and creative practices as engines of change: ‘Why Create?’ - realising the potential of artistic and creative practices expressed by youth as catalysts of social inclusion, innovation and social change. - Creative youth as agents of change in the community: ‘You Create’ – addressing the need to empower young people through opportunities for cultural and artistic participation, for active citizenship and commitment towards community action.

BIGTIME TAKEOVER is aimed at empowering young people to use their creativity and the potential of technology in positive ways that give them a voice in issues that affect their lives. It is based on applying the concept of a digital site “takeover” - where the users of a communications site monopolise that site to curate and promote their own message and creative content. It will use the Takeover model as a basis for engaging young people in devising their own Creative Action Projects – ie: projects that deploy and develop imaginative creative skills to create positive social change and to benefit the wider community. In the context of high levels of youth unemployment and predicted to rise dramatically in the wake of the COVID-19 virus, such projects, enabled and facilitated by professional Youth Arts Educators, offer young people a route to develop creative solutions to issues that affect their lives, engage productively with stakeholders in their communities, develop active citizenship and deepen political, social and civic participation.BIGTIME TAKEOVER will harness the capacities of evolving new digital technologies as a tool for transnational transfer and exchange of these models led by the young people themselves. Starting with projects aimed at making a positive change in their environment at a local level, it will incorporate increasing stages of transnational collaboration as young people gain confidence in taking over the power to direct their own expression, which will give them an edge as they prepare to enter a competitive labour market or progress into education and training.The project partnership consists of 6 youth arts providers in 5 European countries: Italy, UK, Cyprus, Poland and North Macedonia. Five have extensive experience and history of collaborating together on Erasmus Plus. The sixth partner from North Macedonia is a long established Youth Arts Cultural Centre with extensive experience of European and international artistic collaborations but new to Erasmus Plus, and therefore the project facilitates an important knowledge transfer element. The project targets young people at risk of social and cultural exclusion including refugees and migrants. It also addresses the needs of Creative Arts Educators, who play a key role in fostering young people’s creative skills acknowledging the impact of this crisis on Youth Arts Mentors by incorporating a module addressing wellbeing and mindfulness.The project will create the following results from the Intellectual Outputs:IO1: Youth Arts Educators Toolkit to enhance the transferability of Creative Arts Actions that foster young people’s empowerment and civic participation. The target users are Youth Arts Educators who support young people who face barriers of exclusion and disadvantage to develop confidence and motivation through creative expression.IO2: A Youth Powerpack designed and co-created by young people as a mechanism through which learning is transferred and expressed from local Creative Arts Projects in each country. IO3: The BigTime Takeover Digital Platform an online vehicle for young people’s transnational collaboration and a showcase for the BigTime Takeover, through which creative content generated by the project will be publicly shared and available, and which will continue as a legacy of the project, disseminating the Arts Actions and as a platform for future collaborations. All these results will be hosted on a new transnational online communications platform, through which all the learning resources and creative content generated by the project will be publicly shared and available.The project will generate the following additional results in terms of participation:- 100 young people participate directly in local Creative Action Projects;- 36 young people participate in BigTime Takeover;- 12 young people and 6 youth arts mentors attend 5 day transnational blended mobility event;- 5,000 visitors use the digital communication tools, platforms and social media;- 150 attenders at 6 Multiplier Events in 5 partner countries;- 10 Youth Arts Mentors participate in transnational peer-to-peer mentoring and achieve accreditation of their competences at EQF Level 4;- At least 60 % of young people participating will be female, addressing gender disparity in the field of digital technology.The combined results will create a package of digitally accessible learning resources, which can be used in formal and non-formal youth arts and education settings and will be widely disseminated through social media, supporting young people to find their creative voice, make new connections and collaborate with different stakeholders across national boundaries to make a difference to issues that affect their lives.

<< Objectives >>The project is aimed at creating and fostering opportunities of knowledge sharing on social cohesion, democracy, intercultural understanding and inclusivity, with the aim to support social development in marginalised areas. The project also has the objective of developing strategic tools and methodologies to enhance youth workers’ social and professional skills in the field of youth involvement and social engagement, also increasing their capacity to operate jointly at a transnational level<< Implementation >>The project’s activities are designed in order to allow the fulfillment of the objectives. These are: Mapping of solidarity efforts in the field of youth based on cooperation and active citizenship (WP2); creation of a Youth Community Engagement Model - Humanness Toolkit (WP3); organisation of a School of Active Citizenship for youth workers in Uganda (WP4). Consortium will also deal with: Project Management (WP1); Humanness Communication Campaign (WP5); Monitoring and Evaluation Action(WP6).<< Results >>The objectives are meant to be achieved through the following concrete results: R1 - A comprehensive mapping of youth-related active citizenship initiatives promoted by grassroots movements and CSOs in the field of youth work and community development; R2 - The Humanness Toolkit, a freely available tool providing information and practical notions to youth workers and other stakeholders about youth engagement; R3 - Uganda School for Active Citizenship; R4 - The Humanness Communication Campaign.

Sexual abuse has significant detrimental effects on young people, leading to long-term effects that cause social exclusion in terms of negative impacts on mental and emotional health, development and wellbeing, throughout key parts of their lives with severe knock-on results. The prevalence of sexual abuse towards children and young people is a significant societal challenge in Europe, identified by UN Special Protection Measures and the Council of Europe, which estimates between 10% and 25% of young people experience sexual abuse stating that ‘available data suggest that 1 in 5 children in Europe are victims of some form of sexual violence’. The overall aim of Keep Me Safe - https://keepmesafe.eu/ - was to build the capacity of its key target group - European Youth Workers working with young people aged 13 to 18 – to better support young people to identify and tackle manifestations of sexual abuse...Its specific objectives were to: • Contribute to a transnational capacitation of Youth Workers (through the Keep Me Safe Youth Workers programme) on awareness raising, prevention, early detection and disclosure of sexual abuse among young people with a new transferable, European level pedagogical framework of professional development. •Directly empower young people to tackle sexual abuse and support their peers by equipping youth workers to facilitate and support young people to counteract sexual abuse through a peer-to-peer support strategy• Contribute to the EU level transfer of knowledge and practices on youth work related to the prevention and protection from sexual abuse of through user-friendly digital learning resource (Keep Me Safe Digital App)• Promote transnational debate, dialogue,KMS built upon the DG Justice funded JudEx+ project (2015-2017), which successfully developed a unique methodology and CPD training programme to promote a child friendly judicial system throughout Europe developing the skillsets of professionals working with children surviving sexual violence. Usually the weight of recognising signs of sexual abuse is given to adult figures: parents and guardians, as well as primary care givers, teachers, mentors and community leaders. Initiatives aimed at tackling the situation tend to focus upon professional adults in their roles in addressing a young person’s sexual abuse experience, developing the capacity of professionals or staff working with youth, investing mainly in people with a certain position of authority. Mobilising the JudEx+ ethos, best practice and achievements, KMS offers a new transnational methodology to support youth workers to both increase their own knowledge, awareness and safeguarding strategies, while creating a youth-led Peer Support Network. KMS empowered young people’s inter-support skills, providing guidance on support mechanisms when a friend makes a sexual abuse disclosure, what to do when this occurs, while also ensuring their own safety, preventing inter-peer abuse. KMS directly engaged over 300 individuals in its activities, with 164 youth workers and youth peers as direct participants in the piloting and validation programme and 160 external stakeholders in attendance at the project’s programme of Multiplier Events. Moreover, the activities and results of the project were proactively disseminated to over 5,000 stakeholder connections through, social media bulletins and specifically-produced e-zine newsletters and local stakeholder dialogue. KMS was implemented by a strong youth-focused partnership and network comprising 7 organisations across 6 European countries (UK, CY, SI, BG, FR, DK) with experience of KA2 Strategic partnership projects and the motivation to mobilise the enhanced skillsets of a European network of practitioners in the KMS concept. KMS designed three innovative intellectual outputs ( IO1 Keep Me Safe Youth Workers Development Curriculum; IO2 Keep Me Safe Youth Peers Training Programme; IO3 Keep Me Safe Mobile Digital Learning App) that increase the youth sector’s knowledge, awareness and civic participation in addressing sexual abuse amongst 13 to 18 year olds – both at the youth worker level through comprehensive role and competency specification, as well as amongst young people through active peer-to-peer engagement, while formalising a unique training methodology/curriculum aimed at developing Youth Peers actively raising awareness against sexual abuse. The KMS programme contributes to the Erasmus+ Youth priorities of Promoting quality youth work and Promoting youth empowerment, by developing a unique alternative pathway for early detection of sexual abuse as well as the prevention of sexual violence amongst young people. The role of the KMS peer raises awareness on support to help youth understand abuse and its signs - addressing the Erasmus+ priority of Social Inclusion, empowering vulnerable young people to recognise and address abuse.

<< Background >>Circus ACT main aim is to ease the transition into adulthood of youth at-risk of social exclusion by strengthening their key competences and basic skills. The youth will take part in local social circus workshops with the aim of enhancing their emotional, physical, and mental health, improving their physical literacy, personal development and social growth and thus, helping them take up an active role in society. Youth at-risk- with a rate of 25.1% in Europe-CY 23.2%, SL 12.5%, HU 21.4%, 22.1 %, FI 24.5%, EE 18.6% (Eurostat, 2019) are those who are less likely to transition successfully into adulthood. Success can include academic success, job readiness, and the ability to be financially independent. It can also refer to the ability to become a positive member of society by avoiding foul play. Youth at-risk have often been orphaned, abandoned, neglected or abused, and as a result, often struggle with low self-esteem, trust issues and anxiety.Social circus is an innovative approach based on the combination of circus arts and social-pedagogy which aims to assist personal development and boost self-esteem and social competence of at-risk youth through circus instruction and performance. In addition to teaching general social skills such as leadership and teamwork, social circus connects people who might otherwise be socially isolated and presents a novel method for engaging disadvantaged youth. Of course, we cannot overlook its physical benefits as well as the fact that it promotes the acquisition of new skills, which has been shown to carry profound neurological benefits. Finally, participation in social circus performances has been shown to boost confidence and increase resilience by providing a safe avenue for adolescents to test physical limits.While many of the benefits mentioned above can also be achieved through other artistic and athletic activities, what makes social circus unique is the non-competitive setting it provides, the constant learning of new skills and the intersection of physical activity and the arts. Circus also allows youth to test boundaries in an appropriate and safe environment. Just like the road to maturity is full of trial and error, circus requires young people to persist through a series of failures until they inevitably succeed. Thus, the integration of this unique set of skills learned through developmental circus arts programs is disposed to equip youth with the resilience they need to be successful adults. (CBLI report: The benefits of social circus)The partnership consists of either research and educational organisations, youth organisations or circus/social circus organisations. Therefore, they have experience in diverse topics including social inclusion and youth work. The project is developed as a response to the common interest of the partners, and of the general educational community, in tackling the problem of social exclusion among disadvantaged youngsters. They expect to find out WHY even though sufficient efforts have been made through the decades to tackle this problem at European and international level, these efforts do not solidly progress, leaving youth workers powerless. At the same time, through an exchange of good practices and ideas they will gain valuable knowledge and experiences which will not only contribute to the personal and professional development of their staff, but also to the creation of an innovative and comprehensive training package. More specifically, P2, P4 and P5 will complement the social circus training they already offer, while for the rest of the consortium the main needs that will be addressed is to manage to bring together the skills of such a diverse set of partners in creating new curricula and expanding their training offer.Additionally, the need to expand previous partnrs works (such as in the CIRCUS+ project,) and knowledge in similar fields will be addressed.<< Objectives >>What makes social circus unique is the non-competitive setting it provides, the constant learning of new skills and the intersection of physical activity and the arts. Circus also allows youth to test boundaries in an appropriate and safe environment. Just like the road to maturity is full of trial and error, circus requires young people to persist through a series of failures until they inevitably succeed. Thus, the integration of this unique set of skills learned through developmental circus arts programs is disposed to equip youth with the resilience they need to be successful adults. (CBLI report: The benefits of social circus)Finally, social circus can be a powerful tool for promoting positive and meaningful interactions between individuals who are prone to social isolation, such as youth-at-risk. Additionally, the preliminary needs assessment conducted by the partners has identified gaps in the competencies of youth workers working with youth-at-risk (see annex 1)Therefore, with target group youth workers and marginalized youth (at-risk of exclusion), we propose a project with the following objectives:To ease the transitioning of youth-at-risk into adulthoodto provide youth-at-risk with both tangible circus skills and with the opportunity to perform, thereby increasing social cohesion and self-esteem.To bring together young people who are prone to social exclusionTo enhance emotional, physical, and mental health of young people at risk of exclusion To improve physical literacy, personal development, and social growth of young people at-risk To create social change helping young individuals at-risk take up an active role in society.To develop an educational tool for youth workers to help them acquire theoretical and practical knowledge of social circus pedagogy and support them in planning and implementing social circus learning activities as tool to help youth-at-risk transition into adulthood<< Implementation >>Our intention is to work at the highest possible level of engagement, to respect participants' different expectations, the pace of working and needs and carry out activities that will lead to the achievement of the project objectives and delivery of the planned results in an all-inclusive manner. Tasks associated with the project are divided among partners as followed:1. Project management: It is very important for everything to be implemented on schedule and to define specific and measurable objectives for the project in general, as well for every phase and activity of the project. This presupposes that all partners involved in the project have a deep understanding of its aims, objectives, results, activities, and phases. From the very beginning of the project, management, quality monitoring and evaluation of the project activities will be assured through the guidance on the agreed Project Management Plan (P1), Evaluation and Quality Assurance Plan (P5), Dissemination Plan (P6) and Sustainability and Exploitation Plan (P7). All the materials will be developed with the contribution of all partners to establish a strong foundation. These Plans will clearly state and set the rules of the project, the obligations of the partners, the allocation of tasks and responsibilities, the processes of mitigating risks, and many other management actions for the partners to follow. 2. Physical (TPMs) and virtual communication(e-mails, online meetings) will contribute to an effective monitoring of the project's progress. To promote environmental sustainability, the number of TPMs will be kept to a low number.3. Project Results: The mission of the project is to develop a methodology and educational package based on social circus pedagogy that will be used as a tool by youth workers who work with youth at-risk, and who struggle with transitioning into adulthood. An integrated approach will be used to accomplish this task. The consortium will start with the partners conducting a needs analysis via an online survey questionnaire. Although a preliminary needs analysis has already been conducted during the writing of this proposal, the survey will investigate deeper the needs of both youth workers and the final beneficiaries- youth at-risk. The data from both analyses will serve the base for the development of R1: Social Circus Curriculum for youth workers, and at the same time, the e-handbook with the video tutorials (R2) will be created to supplement the training course. All developed PR will then be incorporated into the e-learning platform (R3) of the project, which will be not only the online training platform of the project, but also a network platform for youth/social workers. R3 will also incorporate an Open Badge system which will help validate the knowledge acquired through the training. 4. 1 blended LTTA: consisting of 6-hours online training (via R3) and a 8-day face-to-face training event for youth workers (C1) who will be trained on social circus pedagogy and on how to use it as a tool to help young people transition into adulthood. The online webinar will take place before the C1 mobility, and will prepare the participants for the on-site training course.After the training, the trained youth workers will conduct a number of local social circus workshops for youth at-risk (IO4). When possible, the workshops, will be delivered by experienced social circus practitioners in collaboration with the trained youth workers. In this way, the youth workers, with the guidance of experienced practitioners, will be able to implement and practice what they learnt directly on a group of young people. During the preparation of the workshops, if needed, youth workers will also be supported through additional virtual meetings with the social circus experts of the consortium.5.6 multiplier events to deliver “Circus ACT” workshops and promote the project, its PR among its target groups and stakeholders (E1-E6)<< Results >>“Circus ACT” aims to create innovative educational tools, for youth workers to help them acquire theoretical and practical knowledge of social circus pedagogy and support them in planning and implementing social circus learning activities for youth-at-risk.Because of this, the emotional, physical, and mental health of young people at risk of social exclusion will be enhanced, resulting in a smoother transition into adulthood. The different expertise of partners ensures both the quality of the tools to be designed but also the dissemination of the project to the target groups.The project outcomes are directly linked to the project results and activities:1. “Circus ACT” educational Package including 4 interconnected educational material: R1: Social circus curriculum for youth workers who have no previous experience in social circus. The training curriculum will be complemented by R2 an e-Handbook which will include Social Circus Video Tutorials. Finally, the training package will be available through an online platform (R3). The platform will feature an “Open badges” system which will be automatically linked with the assessment process of the courses for recognition and validation of the learning process. The platform will serve not only as an online training platform but also as a network platform for youth/social workers. During the social circus pilot workshops (R4), the partnership will pilot-test the developed package with a group of youth-at-risk, the final beneficiaries, and produce a report.2. 21 trained youth workers (3 from each partner organisation) who will acquire theoretical and practical knowledge of social circus pedagogy through a blended training, during which they are expected to learn how to plan and implement social circus learning activities for youth-at-risk. The blended training will consist of 6 hours online training, in the form of webinars, spread into 2 days- through IO3 and 8 days face-to-face training (C1) 3. at least 100 youth-at-risk across the 6 partner countries , will participate in the social circus workshops (R4)4. 6 multiplier events to promote the project, its results and its outcomes among youth workers, youth-at-risk and other stakeholders (social workers, social circus practitioners, circus professionals, NGOs, youth organisations, Universities, incubators, authorities, other stakeholders) (E1-E6) Other results of “Circus ACT” project will be:1. Staff and associates of the partner organizations (youth workers, educators, mentors, careers coaches, etc) will learn about the educational tools created within the project. Expected number: 402. Young people (including youth-at-risk) will participate in activities within the framework of the project or become aware of it through dissemination activities and events including circus workshops and multiplier events. Expected number: 1503. Increasing everyone’s awareness of social circus pedagogy and its benefits for young people, especially young people at risk. Social workers, youth workers, professionals, NGOs, youth organisations, Universities, incubators, authorities, other stakeholders, etc will visit the project’s website and platform which includes all the educational tools (R1, R2, R3), and become aware of the project. Expected number: 1000Moreover, the project is expected to help youth-at-risk:-transition into adulthood-increase their social cohesion and self-esteem - get together with other young people prone to social exclusion- improve their physical literacy, personal development, and social growth - improve their emotional, physical, and mental health -Empower them to create social change by taking up an active role in society- learn tangible circus skills Additionally, the project also foresees a set of project management, dissemination, monitoring and evaluation, and coordination results.