<< Objectives >>The international partnership ‘Heal Together’ wants to reduce all the negative effects of the pandemic on young people (stress, anxiety, loneliness, lack of physical activity, etc.), and to protect and support their physical and mental well being. In addition, we aim to increase students' motivation and academic achievement, and most importantly, to prevent early school leaving, which is expected to reach 15% according to researches.<< Implementation >>Two transnational meetings are being planned in order to plan the every step of the project and evaluate the results together with our partners. ‘Midfulness and Yoga’, ‘Sport and Health to Heal Together’, ’Healing Power of Music’ topic based three LTT will be held during the project. The final product of our project will be prepared in a way to cover new methods and strategies to reduce the effects of the pandemic as well as good practices in the project.<< Results >>Young people will be more social, more active and happier thanks to the methods of coping with the physical and mental effects caused by the pandemic. By mindfulness and yoga training,healing power sport and music, they will learn the methods of dealing with stress, their quality of life, self-confidence and motivation will increase, and they will learn life long practice in both their school and social lives. Thus, their academic success will increase and early school leaving will be prevented.

<< Background >>CONTEXT: Although progress is visible and the status of women in Europe has unequivocally improved over the last decades, effective equality between women and men is far from being a reality. The gender gap and structural barriers persist in many areas.In fact, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), no member state has yet achieved full gender equality and progress is expected to be slow. Member states scored an average of 67.4 out of 100 in the 2019 EU Gender Equality Index, a score that has improved by only 5.4 points since 2005. The economic crisis has accentuated inequality, increasing the number of groups vulnerable to social exclusion. Now, marginalisation is no longer only caused by specific situations, such as unemployment, poor health conditions or low education. As Castel (2014) points out, the traditional risk groups (immigrant women, the disabled, those with low qualifications or victims of gender violence, etc.) are now joined by people who, until now, have been able to integrate into society and go from having been able to manage their lives to feeling the uncertainty of a future they cannot control. Social disadvantage has become a problem that has economic, social, psychological and cultural dimensions that cannot be separated. Thus, lack of social, economic, political and cultural participation also has psychological and emotional impacts, as part of a comprehensive state of mental, social and occupational health, on groups at greater risk of social exclusion (Escarbajal, Izquierdo and López, 2014).NEEDS: Faced with this situation, the trend in professional practice in the field of social services is to guide their actions with a comprehensive, person-centred and interdisciplinary approach. In this line, physical activity and corporal expression come into play, whose effects on self-esteem are scientifically proven thanks to the generation of dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin, neurotransmitters linked to motivation, joy and personal satisfaction, as well as an antidote to depression.In addition, the development of physical activity tends to strengthen interpersonal relationships and expand the social circle of individuals, generating conversations and routines as a therapeutic element and female empowerment, as they allow women to signify their experiences, life processes and their evolution. Therefore, we can understand physical activity and bodily expression as a vehicle for change, reconstruction, organic phenomenon and encounter with oneself, constituting a mechanism of expression of our perceptual systems (Malchioni, 2010).Empowerment is a concept linked to self-esteem in the sense that it confers a pride in oneself, a sense of being able to do and is therefore inextricably linked to the level of personal self-esteem. For women, empowerment means taking control of their lives, defining their own path and gaining the ability to do things that reaffirm their identity. Together with the therapeutic power of physical activity and corporal expression, coaching and emotional intelligence hace also proved to be a key area in personal development and empowerment processes, establishing strategies for change, reinforcing self-concept and building healthy self-esteem by improving emotional management and reframing situations that have generated undesired results. Both actions (coaching and corporal expression) have also proved to be highly complementary tools due to their strong social and integration factor for groups at risk of exclusion.TARGET GROUP- Women aged 30-50 at risk of social exclusion- Professionals of sport, physical activity or body expression<< Objectives >>EMPACT wants to generate a positive impact on the target group through the development of an improvement in their living conditions based on emotional and psychological health, from which to rebuild a better personal and economic situation for their full integration as major players in European society. For this reason and because of the figures mentioned above, this project needs to be carried out in a transnational way, so that the European Union becomes clearly aware of the difficult situation of women at risk of exclusion and incorporates them as elements of value and decision making.THE OVERALL GOAL is to improve the emotional and psychological health of women at risk of exclusion and belonging to disadvantaged groups, empowering them and increasing their self-esteem and self-concept through coaching, emotional intelligence, physical activity and corporal expression as a therapeutic and social integration element:1 - Emotional management, to develop their ability to manage emotions and introduce new habits into their lives that reinforce their self-confidence and self-esteem.2 - Coaching, to create an action plan to help them apply their new emotional management skills through medium and long-term objectives.3 - Body expression, to help them use the most natural and instinctive means of identifying emotions. Through movement we allow all the emotional blockages that we do not consciously dare to recognise to come to the surface. The connection with the body is the complement is an effective resource of empowerment.On the other hand, the specific objectives of EMPACT are the following ones:- To give visibility to the group of women at risk of social exclusion.- To raise awareness of their problems and their weight in European society.- Empower women at risk of social exclusion from an emotional and corporal perspective as therapeutic elements.- To work on disinhibition, spontaneity and possible bodily blockages. - To discover one's own body and feel at ease with it. - To boost the self-esteem of the target group. - To experience the great expressive richness of our body and give a voice to the target group.- Enabling reconciliation with one's own body: moving from self-destructive behaviour to constructive behaviour.- Discovering the other and in the other support, trust, reinforcement as basic elements of a good relationship. - To introduce relaxation and body massage techniques that help to have experiences of peace, serenity and well-being with oneself implementing coaching and emotional intelligence techniques in their sessionsThe vision we have for our project is to generate a comprehensive training programme that offers women at risk of exclusion the means to empower themselves, to enhance their skills, to discover how not to remain in the situation they are in and how to bring about significant changes in themselves and in their lives.<< Implementation >>Project is divided into 2 types of work packages:1. PROJECT RESULTS (PR), responsibility for each PR lies with a Result Leader.Detailed description of workplan, division of task and responsibilities of partners is included in section: Project Results.2. MANAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION WORK PACKAGES – (financed under the item Management and Implementation) cover whole project duration and are realised at two levels:a. transnational levelb. the level of partner country – responsibility is cascaded down and lies with each partner who realises tasks on this level based on own procedures, resources and tools, using own potential and practices.There are 3 main work packages under the item Management and Implementation including following fields of activity:1. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION:- DOCUMENTATION: all templates and needed documents: project documentation, contracts, timesheets, reporting, etc.- COMMUNICATION AND MEETINGS: transnational meetings, internal staff meetings dealing with the project itself and the intermediate inline meetings, internal staff meeting organised by partners at country level. Communication is described in detail below.- PROGRESS REPORTING: reporting the work done and following steps achieved, milestones, reporting PRs, activities and events: progress of results, TPM, multiplier events and other activities by partners.- BUDGET CONTROL AND FINANCIAL REPORTING: tasks and responsibilities as well as procedure of reporting are described in section: budget control and time management- TIME MANAGEMENT - described in section: budget control and time management- HANDLING RISKS – described in detail below.The responsibility for work package 1 lies with Project Coordinator, who cooperates with Management Group (MG) on a regular basis, at country level is cascaded to partners to person responsible for management (members of Management Group).2. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND EVALUATION:- preparation of Quality Assurance Plan- setting qualitative and quantitative indicators- quality checks and quality assessment of the PRs.- evaluation of the project different than PRs: quality of management, communication, evaluation of meetings and promotion activities etc.- final evaluation of the project’s success – does the project meet the goals, the potential of results, potential to sustain.Tasks under this item are presented in details in appropriate sections of the applications.The responsibility for work package 2 lies with Quality Assurance Leader who cooperates with Quality Assurance Group (QAG) on a regular basis, at country level is cascaded to partners to person responsible for quality assurance (members of QAG).3. PROMOTION:- Promotion plan with measures and indicators- Graphic standards- Visualization of the project: logotype, colours, templates of documents- Project website- coordination of promotion in partner’s Social networks (FB, LinkedIn, YouTube)- newsletters- project leaflet / one pager for promotionThe responsibility for work package 3 lies with Promotion Leader, who cooperates with Dissemination Group (DG) on a regular basis, at country level is cascaded to partners to person responsible for promotion and dissemination (members of DG).Functional structure assumes following roles:MANAGING GROUP (MG). The group is led by Project Coordinator and cooperates with him/her to realise tasks of workpackage 1 described above.QUALITY ASSURANCE GROUP (QAG). The group is led by Quality Assurance Leader and cooperates with him/her to realise tasks of work package 2 described above.PROMOTION GROUP (PG) – The group is led by Promotion Leader and cooperates with him/her to realise tasks of work package 3.Finally, our project is fully aligned with the environment and the fight against climate change in the procedures we will follow from the start. All partners are involved in the project have agreed to protect the environment by taking all measures within its power and where necessary.<< Results >>TANGIBLE RESULTS:To achieve the objectives of the project three Project Results will be developed, tested and multiplied:The project will develop three Project Results: - PR1: Audio manual in coaching and emotional intelligence skills for professionals on physical activity and body expression/artistic/sports.- PR2: Videos with real cases of body expression/art/sports instructors, where they explain their experiences with women included in the target group, what their needs are and how this kind of practices can help them.- PR3: Training system with a set of 36 practical tools on how to put into practice everything explained in the manual for trainers (PR1) by implementing coaching and emotional intelligence techniques in theirsessions- In the Multiplier Events (E1-E6) the project consortium will celebrate workshops in order to ensure the sustainability of the project results beyond the project partnership and project’ lifetime.RESULTS RELATED TO MANAGEMENT- Managing guidelines;- Reporting procedure and administrative guidelines;- 4 transnational meetings + meeting minutes.- 4 intermediate online meetingsRESULTS RELATED TO QUALITY AND EVALUATION- Evaluation tools: meetings evaluation questionnaire, project progress questionnaire, Project Results evaluation tools and multiplier events evaluation questionnaire.- Evaluation Reports: mid-term and final evaluation report, Project Results reports;- Project risks analysis.RESULTS RELATED TO PROMOTION- Project graphic design;- Social networks profiles;- Project website;- Project mailing list;- Newsletters;- Informative brochure;INTANGIBLE DIRECT RESULTS: - Developed knowledge and skills of monitors and professionals devoted to physical exercise or corporal expression in testing project outputs on how to manage their emotions.- Increased awareness of the need to manage women's emotions in their day by day. ADDITIONAL OUTCOMES FOR PARTNERS:- Increased capacity of partners and associated partners through expanded offer of their organizations with free solutions available to customers and recipients;- On the basis of international cooperation among diverse partners, experience exchange, and mutual learning, partners' experience and potential have been developed.- Partner collaboration should be strengthened.- Partners' image as those who undertake innovative initiatives and promote an innovative approach has been reinforced.