Project background: independent critical thinking, media literacy and media education are needed in the contemporary world to be able to analyze the influence that both traditional media and social media agents seek to have on both our actions and mindsets. Particularly social media is an arena where visual messages of potentially high impact can go viral among peers and have the influence without an opportunity to read between the lines: while being under the direct influence of film / clip it is hard to stand back and reflect which could cause provoked actions. Due to the advancement of IT-technology, particularly among the young, visual communication has become a dominant vehicle of influence via advertisements, propaganda and documentary films. Problem statement: · Media education has not been well integrated to curricula of school, in youth work it's still a developing topic how to raise these issues. · Media literacy is a competence people working with youth (youth workers, youth leaders, trainers, teachers etc) typically lack, because of poor preparation · Thus those topics are generally not part of youth work either so consequently media literacy competences of youngsters may remain poor.Objectives: - promote the usage of visual facilitation as an easy tool to start discussions - promote the usage of various film clips accompanied with discussions to maximise the impact of the clip - learn from the various expertise of different organisations (Scotdec's global educational aspect, Mondo's film database and BRFs skillset about media literacy) - increase the network of participating organisations both locally and internationally. Number of organisations involved directly: 3Profile:Mondo.NGO Mondo (Estonia) is one biggest NGOs in Estonia, established in 2007, working on humanitarian aid, development cooperation and global education. It trains teachers and youth workers and develops teaching and learning materials and workshops which are used in different levels in formal as well as non-formal education. The Centre has a film library with more than 160 documentary films available for schools and youth centres for free and a library of educational and background materials. A large variety of background materials can also be found for free from Mondo's global education webpages: www.maailmakool.ee ScotdecScotdec is a small but very effective Global Learning Centre which has been working in the field of development education for over 30 years. In this time we have gained an excellent reputation for professionalism and innovation, developing professional development programmes and resource materials. We are very effective at building strong, positive working relationship with professional teaching and youth work networks in Scotland. Also, we have skills at developing resources for youth workers and peer educatorsWe work with educators in the formal and informal sectors: in the formal sector with teachers, students and lecturers from Early Years right through to Higher and Initial Teacher Education and in the informal sector mainly with Youth Workers and Youth Leaders. Baltic Regional FundThe “Baltic Regional fund” is a non governmental organisation and foundation, supporting social and intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and cultural exchange among young people and adults .The organization is located in Riga but the foundation organizes regular activities in the whole of Latvia as well as collaborating on a European level, implementing educational projects. Foundation target groups are: children, youth, students, adults and especially groups of social risk - early school leavers, migrants and unemployed.Organization's activities: Project work, seminars, training courses and consulting.Description of undertaken main activities1 transnational meeting amongst coordinators to plan before the start of the project. 1 learning/teaching activity for 15 youth workers from three organisations2 transnational meetings happening in Edinburgh and Riga to have face time amongst participants to develop network, ideas and work on project outcome.1 transnational meetings amongst coordinators to have final discussions concerning the project. Results and impact attained - 15 educators, who participated in learning/teaching activity know about using media clips as a tool, visual facilitation as a method and have gained the skills of thinking critically about the media.- educators and their connecting organisations have the confidence in using media clips as a method to talk about various topics (including global ones, but also more personal ones).- all participants are more informed about the work done in Scotland, Latvia and Estonia and have taken back to their work situation best practises that are implemented in the organisations.- all participants have developed a network of international contacts- cooperation network in international youth work.

<< Objectives >>The project Peace Education in Times of Crises brings together organizations from Estonia, Finland and Poland in order to provide youth workers and other educators with non-formal tools in Peace Education (PE). Our activities aim at reducing destructive conflict and tension, reducing polarization and preventing extremism, and through our targeted intervention for youth and youth workers, we will increase societal cohesion, foster participation and promote dialogue in the society at large.<< Implementation >>Our project consists of 3 main streams. Firstly, we will focus on building the capacity of partner organizations in PE and on increasing our understanding of the context of societal tensions and peace-building in each country. Secondly, we will develop an online course with inspiring approaches, methods and techniques that meet the current needs of educators working with youth. Finally, we will implement trainings and learning circles to enable further self-development in PE for youth workers.<< Results >>Youth workers play a critical role in cultivating solidarity, empathy and respect for diversity among young people. They are often the first responders to conflicts that arise among the youth. This project provides them with competencies and tools in times of several crises. As a result of our action, we will create a network of youth workers and PE actors at national and international levels, provide training to 200+ educators in 3 countries, and contribute to fostering peace in our societies.

"<< Objectives >>The project will allow us to build on and transfer the existing award-winning initiative ""Global Education Teachers' Club"", developed in Slovenia, to 4 partner countries. The initiative aims to support teachers in strengthening their competences to teach young people about the global challenges of the 21st century and to advocate for common humanistic values. We also want to contribute to raising the profile of global education among the teaching community, policy makers and the wider public.<< Implementation >>The main activities will be focused on transferring the knowledge and experience about setting up the Global Education Teachers Club in Slovenia to partner organizations, the establishment and implementation of club activities in 5 European countries, strengthening the capacity and competencies of partner organizations for developing new global education activities and work with teachers on advanced level, and improved recognition of the importance of global education for teaching young people.<< Results >>The main results of the project will be the implementation of Clubs’ activities for teachers in 5 Eu countries, the improvement of teachers' competences to integrate global education into teaching and supporting young people on their path to active citizenship, the improvement of the partner organisations' competences to work with teachers, new teaching resources and training programme for teachers, and better awareness of the importance of integrating global education into formal education."

<< Objectives >>The aim of the “Critical and Ethical Global Education – Heading up to Safer Schools” (CEGE) project is to build well-being and socially just educational eco-systems. To reach this aim, the objectives of the CEGE are (i) to deepen educational professionals’ and students’ knowledge and understanding about global responsibility, and (ii) to boost their interest to engage and willingness to act for sustainability, equality and equity.<< Implementation >>CEGE comprises of set of interlinked activities: arrangement of international workshops and study-circles; development of teaching and learning materials and methods; and settling of a solid professional network for peer support and future collaboration. Our work around the core themes of the CEGE is guided by two learning and teaching materials and methods, HEADSUP and SAFER – Learning Diary, to be contextualised and utilised in the project.<< Results >>Enhanced knowledge and understanding about CEGE themes Improved professional competences and confidence to do” global education and create safe(r) spaces Jointly developed way to utilize learning and teaching materials and methodsActive peer support system for exchanging experiences and ideas to advance core CEGE themesEstablished project and thematic network in the ESEPlatformIncreased opportunities for students to critically interrogate and ethically engage CEGE themes

"The project ""ComEdu: Comics for Education"" established a strategic partnership among three organisations Grafiskie Stāsti in Latvia, Mondo in Estonia and Rota Jovem in Portugal for 25 month from 1.10.2018 until 30.11.2020. The aim of the project was to improve and expand international youth work in the partner countries by bringing together comic artists and youth workers and educators in youth work and developing comic as a learning and communication tool in education. Objectives set and reached: 1) we built an international network of youth workers, educators and comic artists, illustrators for educational purposes; 2) we developed competences to design and implement educational programs for youth using comic as a learning tool; 3) we created comics and developed educational materials for youth on different topics relevant to youth and non-formal education using comic as an expression form (environment, critical thinking, media literacy, life in rural areas, global education, bullying, gender roles, stereotypes, intercultural learning, Youthpass and life-learning competences). We used comics as a learning and communication tool as it is a messenger bridging generations – from a traditional printed-on-paper book to the digital era of visual media nowadays. A comic is a visual narrative and its ingredients – an image and a story – that allow us to communicate complex ideas in a clear way, draw attention and increase understanding of important topics by using accessible and simple means - a story, paper and a pen. Thus, easy to create, easy to read, easy to facilitate, easy to express oneself, comics are strong in delivering the message, especially for the young generation who are growing up in a visually saturated world. Besides the fact that comics as a form of expression is easily accessible to anyone, it is also a visually compressed narrative tool that develops one’s imagination and practical abilities to express ideas in metaphors and condensed images, therefore it develops also young people’s visual literacy skills. The activities and outcomes of the project were: 1) 2 transnational team meetings in which 40 youth workers, educators, comic artists and illustrators were trained to create comics, learning materials and to deliver comics workshops on different topics for young people;In the 1st meeting ""ComEDU:Creating Comics for Education"" (28.01. to 03.02.19 in Talsu novalds, Latvia) we established an international network among partner organizations and the educators, youth workers and artists who worked together to select topics and contents for the educational comics, set up co-working teams and created comics.In the 2nd meeting ""ComEDU: Comics as a Method in Education"" (22.10.-28.10.19 in Cascais, Portugal) we shared the created comics, developed and evaluated the educational materials and developed facilitators' competences to use the methods in working with youth, and planned the dissemination activities. 2) Educational comics materials (e-book) in 4 languages (Latvian, Estonian, Portuguese, English) as the intellectual output including 11 new comics (in total we created 103 pages of comics), complemented with relevant non-formal methodology. Based on each comic we developed educational tools - 20 methods and activity plans, ice-breaking and warming up exercises and comics creating tips. All of the activity descriptions include step by step guide, notes on materials, time and tips for the facilitators. All materials are free and available to download online via partner's websites and EU project dissemination platform: http://komikss.lv/comedu/, http://home.rotajovem.com/comedu-comics-for-education.html, https://maailmakool.ee/comedu/. 3) 6 comics exhibitions, 6 workshops for young people and 3 seminars for educators and youth workers. The created comics and educational tools were disseminated in 3 partner countries in comics exhibitions showcasing the created content for the educational comics reaching more than 1000 visitors; Educational comics workshops for local youth and methodology seminars for youth workers and educators, in total 87 young people and 32 educators, youth workers took part.Despite the unexpected obstacles due to Covid-19 pandemic, the project has reached a much wider interested and audience than we expected. To begin with, we received 97 applications for 40 places at translational meetings, we were able to organize more exhibitions and workshops for youth than planned. Participants of the transnational meetings organized additional events to share the created comics, methods and skills they had learned. Several participants of educators' seminar are implementing our methods in their daily work and are planning to organize workshops for their colleagues in libraries, NGOs, schools and are developing new projects inspired and based on our materials and discovery of comics as a powerful tool in education."