"The ""Tell your story"" project aimed to combine the tradition of storytelling with contemporary technical tools. Project partners were from Poland, Greece, Romania and The UK.The main objective of the project was to give disadvantaged adults (older learners, refugees, immigrants, unemployed) positive learning and cultural experiences, and to motivate them to lifelong learning, to promote their creativity and their mobility. Digital storytelling method increased their IT and English language skills, key competences (writing, reading and speaking). Learners created videos on EU topics, but also personal stories.Teachers had an opportunity to learn about the digital storytelling method as a way to motivate adult learners through traditional and non-traditional teaching methods. Both learners and teachers learned to organize plot of stories with pictures, using first person narratives, voice recording, editing the sound according to sequence of the event, add subtitles in English to the stories.A common study program was developed, and included IT and English worksops, cultural awareness about the European Union.The project promoted intercultural dialogue among EU members and refugees.Learners and teachers mobility and motivation was enhanced and indirectly, the project was also a way to combat prejudice, racism and xenophobia by raising awareness of a multi-cultural/multi-racial EU."

Generation gap exists all over the world. The current events in our country show that parents lack psychological knowledge how to communicate with their children. They do not know the peculiarities of a certain age period, how to behave in stressful situations, how to control themselves. The government introduced new legislation concerning children's rights but there is little help i. e. trainings, seminars for parents how to behave with their own children. The target group of our project was parents having difficulties in communication with their children. We observed that there are similar trainings for foster parents or patrons in our district, but we lack training programs for our target group. Usually training courses are organized for those parents whose children are withdrawn from the family because of e. g. violence or alcoholism. In such cases parents are obliged to courses of improving communication with their children. These courses are oriented to the families of social risk. The families who are not obliged to this type of courses but have difficulties with their children lack trainings. We can find lots of information on the net but still it is quite complicated for parents to choose the most suitable and useful one. Furthermore, it is much useful to learn in groups to study the situation and find out the best answer or a solution. The trainings of positive parenthood are usually organized in the cities and the parents from small towns and villages can't afford it. The project partners shared their experience and knowledge in this field. Each country sent 2 staff members for transnational meetings. The hosting country involved more participants in the project activities. The good experience was shared among 20 participants of the project. It was a great experience to find out a good experience of other countries. A good experience was brought into practice by us and our partners. We will use a good experience in future to encourage parents to gain knowledge and be active in this field. The experience brought from our partners diversified the forms of trainings. The trainings improved parents' competences on the cognition of the child, on positive parenthood, development of emotional intelligence and self-cognition, coping with stress etc. The project helped us and our partners to develop our own competences in program writing and organizing trainings and seminars. The Project was implemented by partners form Lithuania, Italy, The Czech Republic and Greece. The partners were chosen after long correspondence, checking their profiles and experience in project writing, discussing the idea and the way it should be developed and implemented. Main criteria were the field of similar activities i. e. organizing trainings and seminars, their experience in project writing and implementation. All the partners involved are cooperating for the first time. The activities of the project included the discussions of the project’s objectives and overall plan of the project; meetings with the specialists of child's rights, psychologists and pedagogical workers to clear up the nature of the work in these institutions, to show the importance of the trainings for the parents to forestall problems occurring in the field of communication between parents and children; participating in experiential learning where parents and their children and psychologists were discussing real problems; practicing different methods in parenting coaching; sharing the best practical experience; the discussion of the results and future cooperation. During the time of the project there were organized two lectures of families' psychologist and two different practical activities with arts and nature for Project target group.The knowledge and practice acquired during the project were the basis of our training program for parents. The participants of the project, i. e. the selected workers for the project from our department are competent in writing programs for adults. The gained knowledge allowed them to work cooperatively with our partners to create the training program. During the parents meetings at schools when our project was presented the parents were given the questionnaires to know the scope of the possible target group, the most important problems parents see to be solved during the trainings, what psychological help is the most essential for them.

The project CHEFS (Cultural Heritage through the learning of English, French and Spanish as a foreign language) has been successfully completed and after three years, we are satisfied to have been involved in this project. During this time, we have succeeded in engaging many students and teachers from different schools in different activities, and we are proud to present the results. Our students have improved the target language through the cultural heritage not only of their country, but also of the other partner countries of the project. Furthermore, we (both students and teachers) have exchanged experiences, knowledge, and ways of working, which have enriched our teaching and learning practice and broadened horizons. Being able to work with people from other countries has been a paramount motivation while carrying out the activities as students could interact in real everyday life situations.The objectives of the project have been achieved by improving the cultural awareness and European citizenship of adult learners and teaching staff through the discovery and promotion of European cultural heritage whilst using a variety of activities and learning techniques. From a linguistic point of view, foreign language acquisition has been optimized; language skills of students of English, French and Spanish both in and outside the classroom have been enhanced; social skills promoted; individual self-confidence boosted and autonomous and peer learning engaged.Sixty-seven students and accompanying persons took part in the mobilities. This figure would have been even higher had we been able to perform C4 in Brussels, a mobility we had to cancel due to covid. The profile of the vast majority of students who participated in the mobilities was that of people who had never had the opportunity to participate in a European project before. Apart from the possibility of putting the language studied into practice, all these people were able to meet people from other countries and therefore get to know other cultures and establish links that go beyond the CHEFS project. Moreover, our project has not only benefited the sixty-seven participants mentioned before, but also those who, in a direct or indirect way, have participated in the proposed activities, a total of about 3000 people.Apart from the activities carried out during the mobilities, we have undertaken other tasks, in order to achieve the objectives that we had initially set. Most of these activities have been collected in a downloadable handbook available in the project blog https://erasmuschefs.com, which includes the record of all the transnational meetings, activities, mobilities, impressions of students, dissemination, etcetera.Last but not least, the CHEFS project has been a motivational approach to second language teaching and learning for all the individuals somehow involved in the project. We strongly believe that we have succeeded in conveying the importance of cultural heritage when learning a foreign language. Going to class is important, but second language learning goes beyond the classroom, and this is what we have promoted with the CHEFS project. Nowadays, students who have experienced the CHEFS project are eager to undertake activities outside the class by exploring the surrounding cultural heritage and establishing contacts with students from other countries they share the same interests with, such as the learning of a foreign language through its monuments, legends, food, traditions, folk and music.After this three-year experience, we are convinced of the merits of our methodology and are happy to observe how our activities are not limited to the classroom and the language only. We are sending confident, multi-lingual and skilled ambassadors of the European project into the world and will continue to work with the learning outcomes and methodology of the CHEFS project, in order to also maintain and further expand our international network of participants.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is universal, holistic and indivisible, with a special imperative to leave no one behind. The achievement of Sustainable Development Goal n° 4, which ensures inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, plays a central role in building sustainable, inclusive and resilient societies. While education in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is most explicitly formulated as a standalone goal (SDG4), it also has reciprocal linkages across the board. There are a number of education-related targets and indicators in other Goals, including health and well-being, gender equality, decent work, responsible consumption and growth, and climate change mitigation: that’s why, the Partner Organizations share the stance that education is a key enabler for sustainable development and are eager to explore its critical interlinkages with the other goals and targets set within the 2030 Agenda and how can the co-benefits be promoted and tradeoffs reduced. Although progress has been made towards achieving SDG4, the context is rapidly changing with ever new skills demands and many barriers to education access and educational outcomes remain in place, as remain challenges to the monitoring of achievements; this can present opportunities and challenges towards renovated learning environments, reinforced capacities of teachers and enhanced quality of education. This can be a decisive moment to take stock of how to accelerate progress towards SDG 4, and to affirm the significance of education to the rest of the 2030 Agenda; in fact, as education provides the means to transmit knowledge, values and skills across generation, enabling societies to set the foundation for thriving in the future, public awareness of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs appear as highly relevant to different spheres of society as well as directly to communities, a step towards the next phase of implementation, fostering sustainable and long-term transformations, including through integrating SDGs into education curricula, is important.Especially in a rapidly changing world with technological shifts, global integration and climate pressures, educational needs are being called into question in terms of how learning systems match with constantly changing demands.Social, political, environmental and economic changes, as well as accelerated technological innovations, have profound implications for education and training systems. Accordingly, commitments are needed to support lifelong learning opportunities for all to ensure necessary competencies for personal development, decent work and sustainable development, with attention to climate change, adaptation and mitigation; i.e. education institutions are called to provide lifelong learners with the competences to be active citizens in democratic and sustainable societies, including efforts to promote education for sustainable lifestyles, Sustainable Development Goals and active participation, appreciation for cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue, solidarity and more peaceful, tolerant and inclusive societies. This requires attention to pedagogy, curricula, teaching and learning materials, assessments, initial teacher training and continuous professional development, inter alia.This strategic partnership is rooted on the need to exchange good practices as regards the so-called “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, adopted by all United Nations Member States, in 2015, providing a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future, rooted on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, as an urgent call for action, in a global partnership. The Agenda recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth, all while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests.In this perspective the Partner Organizations are willing to center their common key needs and goals:- to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (Sustainable Development Goal 4), further strengthening international cooperation in adult education;- within this shared global vision towards sustainable development for all, gaining those competences which can help make the 2030 Agenda a reality also in their contexts;- recognizing how a broad ownership of the SDGs have to be translated into a strong commitment by all stakeholders and especially by those entities who can spark actions locally and nationally;- highlighting the role of education as a standalone goal (SDG4) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable, while at the same time investigating its interlinkages and interactions with all the remaining Sustainable Development Goals.

"Food is a great vehicle for sharing culture with people from different backgrounds.The Erasmus+ project “Healthnic: Healthy and ethnic diet for inclusion"" (2017-1-EL01-KA204-036253) created the Healthnic Diet Workshops based on participatory learning methodology. The workshops enable participants such as refugees, immigrants, local people, and vulnerable target groups to acquire basic skills such as home economics, healthy eating education, food preparation methods and also language and ICT skills by creating digital stories focused on the knowledge gained. Above all the project focus on how a person can acknowledge her/his own home country food traditions and interact in a culturally inclusive environment.The partnership was composed of the project coordinator Vardakeios School (GR) and partners: Danmar Computers (PL), Diciannove Coop. (IT), Institute of Technology, Tralee (IR) and Merseyside Refugee Support Network (UK)15 staff members from the 5 partner countries attended a 5-day Learning and Teaching Training activities seminar on Syros island and then organised local workshops, in their own countries were overall 60 participants from the above target groups attended cooking and digital storytelling sessions. All these activities were based on the Practical Guide that was created with the contribution of the staff of all organisations and includes step-by-step instructions on how to organise a learning by doing cooking, multicultural and interactive workshop. The feedback from all the workshops was gathered and became the main material for the second educational resource, the Healthnic Toolkit, which is a web-based compilation of interactive resources, do`s and don`ts and comments from the participants and facilitators. During the last months of the project all partners organised Multiplier Events to disseminate the project and the intellectual outputs on professionals that work with the above target groups. These meetings set the bases to expand the horizons of the project, to create a link between the project partners and the local, national and international stakeholders. It`s really optimistic that many organisations want to organise Healthnic workshops and are in contact with the consortium in order to advise them and to receive more feedback from the gained experience.Healthnic.eu is the e-platform that the project created in order to offer to everybody all the educational resources (translated in English, Greek, Italian and Polish) and material that was produced during the implementation of the project. There you can find:-the Practical Guide to Healthnic Workshops - available in Free Download -the Healthnic Toolkit - a free web-based interactive manual -the videos produced over the last two years in the various workshops developed in several European countries- and also all the data about all the activities carried outCooking as a group brings us together because we are able to share our culture and heritage through food and give each other nourishment.For more information on the project don`t hesitate to contact us on:Mail: info@healthnic.eu / vardakeios@gmail.comWeb: www.healthnic.euTel: 00306936497398or follow us on social media"