"Our project aims to stimulate and boost educational dimension of public spaces. We believe in power of nonformal education, which can easily ""sneak"" into everyday life of every young person, regardless of privileges, nationality or competences. Public space is the natural enviroment for learning, which has become more and more an desert which need to be recultivated with meaningful activities and a focus on stimulating development of young people. Our project is aiming to create this shift in understanding the public space as a learning space, from the perspective of the youth worker and from the perspective of the young people, with a strong forcus on younth with fewer opportunities. We want to collect though a reseach phase an theoretical understanding which will show how to transform successfully public space into learning space. This will be done in cooperation with the University Potsdam to have a dialogue with the formal educational sector and build this study on solid theoretical ground, to foster cross sectoral cooperation. The outcomes will lead to create a practical tookit, with methods and approaches which will help to make for the youth work field a supportive guidence how to empower this learning experiences in the public space. This will be created based on a practical test phase where the methods will be put into action within activites conduct by the partners. The outcomes will be presented to the wider community of youth workers and stimulate the development of a network of multiplyers which will continue to work on the common ground transforming with their activites public space into learning space. What will lead to a wide spreaded inspiration for the field towards a biggers awareness on th epotential of public space as learning enviroment. And through the network dimension forster longterm cooperation and common project development in this field. In general we aim to stimulate a wider systematic shift of awareness which will lead to more awareness how to use the public space as an enviroment for learning and to unfold the potential of cross sectoral cooperation to create activities which will stimulate young people development in that context. As we have seen in the last years how big is the motivation in reclaiming the public space towards protesting and expressing the personal and politicalopinion, the next step could be to understand it as a ground to learn together and grow. This will recall a old tradition of the Agora - the public, common space as a enviroment to come together and learn from each other as it was in the Antique."

"Clothing and design style play one of the most important roles in young people's lives. The way young people dress becomes part of their identity and the way they are perceived by the others. On the other hand, the question what exactly young people express through their clothes and how is it related to their self-esteem and self-perception remains open. Young people, especially those with disadvantaged backgrounds, are often unaware of their needs and passions or believe that they are not able or skilled to express themselves by their personally crafted clothes. Thus, the main idea of this project was to explore if and how it is possible through cloth design process enter young people personal sphere to reveal they talents, passions and competences in order to use them as resource in further social and professional pro-activity. To do so we created an innovative educational model stimulating self-awareness of young people and entrepreneurship through cloth design called Design Yourself Educational Model (DYEM). This educational tool is openly accessible to the youth workers, trainers, teachers and counselors as it takes the perspective both the learner (for young people) and master (for youth workers and educators). It contains both the manual how to make research and how to create a learning environment in the area of self-expression of young people as well as presents our practice offering also the online space for follow up, feedback and new ideas.Another objective was a research study on youth pro-activity in clothing design and craft that was conducted both in Poland and in Germany. The research consisted of qualitative and a quantitative phase, the latter founding on the prior. The outcomes from both phases in Poland and in Germany were the basis for the content of practical phase of the project: coaching support, online support (in the form of online learning paths) and craft workshops. The research proved that clothing is important for most of young people and that developing own style consists of different methods, starting with easy things (as adding decorations or gluing something) or more complicated ways like sewing completely new clothes. The data has shown that young people interested in self-expression through their own style very often find ways to do so, regardless of lack of finances or access to machines. However, the study had also demonstrated that the idea of what and how to express oneself is crucial in this process. Linking this outcome with education and youth work it seems important to support young people in discovering and developing their own ideas for self-expression through personal or online support, such as learning paths that we have created and inserted on the Design Yourself project's web page. The importance of having an idea goes in line with the research results focusing on factors that encourage young people to manual self-expression, in which personal support was indicated the most. The data also shows that many young people are interested in expressing themselves through their style but either feel little talented or lack ideas. Moreover, the study revealed that young people both in Germany and in Poland while wearing things created on their own feel positive with the surrounding world as well as with themselves: they feel stronger, more confident or more secure. As for the proactivity of young people different aspects became visible during this research. There seems to be a difference between proactivity of people expressing themselves manually and those who don’t express themselves manually. However, this difference is not as clear cut as it was imagined to be at the start of this research. The analyses of proactivity for both German and Polish data show that most respondents are proactive or show this potential.We also constructed ""DesignYourself"" online platform as an interactive space for young people who are creative in redesigning own cloths and want to become proactive it that area as well as for handmakers, fashion designers , youth workers and trainers interested in a topic and new methology.To realize these objectives we created the partnership consisting of two partnership organizations: Arte Ego from Łódź experienced in international and local projects addressed to young people using different art media: circus, sound system, visual art and street work, and its German partner GrenzKultur gGmbH/ Kabuwazi from Berlin providing children and youth with the help in building up needed social skills mainly through the methods of circus. The project was realized with the support of the post-psychiatric hospital youth centre ""Imbryk"" and the network of designers and companies involved in the design of clothing, tailoring and creating accessories. The group of 16 young participants (including 5 persons with fewer opportunities) took part in pilot workshops being part of DYEM elaboration process."

"Young people are not thought to communicate with others. They do not know how to listen to others and to themselves and how to express their opinions and needs without judgment, criticism, and violence. That often leads to aggression and suicide attempts.The objectives of this project are the following:1. To support youth in acquiring and developing basic competencies: an ability to identify, understand, express, interpret and reflect upon own feelings and needs, and to work with others in an empathetic and solution-oriented way.2. To support educators and youth workers by equipping them with an innovative and complementary to other methods tool, enabling themto reach out especially young people who have problems with self-expression and self-reflection in a field of emotions, needs, and future planning. This project will be run transnationally because of its core quality aspect which is a multicultural expression, by incorporating diverse symbols and esthetic coming from different cultures and minority groups. Activities that we planned: 1) Transnational Project Meeting during which we will make final preparation for the whole project and strengthen cooperation between Partners. 2) The research - collecting images representing feelings and needs of young people from different social and cultural backgrounds during workshops, online and offline campaigns. We will also do analyses of most actual resources on a topic of the project across Europe (books, articles in specialized magazines, videos, etc.). 3) Test phase to make sure that our tool will fit young people. 4) Creating The Colors of Feelings and Needs"" - 160 illustrations in printable formats (jpg and pdf.) ready to download on the website and the Manual for youth workers. 5) Mini-congress (multiplier event) to share the outcomes of research and show know-how for “The Colors of Feelings and Needs” deck. During the research phase, we will involve directly minimum 40 young people from Poland and Germany from different areas being in danger of social exclusion (mental health, neurological disabilities, and refugees). We will also approach the min. 100 young people through social media and in public spaces.During the test phase min. 16 young people (8 per country) will take part in the workshops. We also plan mini-congress (multiplier event) - the invitations will be sent to min. 100 youth organizations, schools, and higher education institutions and we will invite 20 experienced youth workers and educators from Poland and Germany. The Colors of Feelings and Needs will empower young people through helping them to name their feelings and needs (making them more self-aware) and empathize with other people’s feelings and needs, showing them how they can take their life in their own hands and take responsibility for fulfilling own needs through different strategies by changing communication patterns. Thanks to that they will develop respect and compassion. Youth workers will gain an innovative and easy to use tool to work with youth - using visual arts and metaphor as a powerful way of nonverbal communication.Nonviolent Communication becomes a crucial element in work with a youth work. It focuses mainly on the communication aspect within a person and with people, and the main tool to reach the outcomes are words. However, while working with young people using words and intellect is not the most efficient way of reaching them and helping to open up and express. That is why we decided to combine nonverbal communication and visual tools with Nonviolent Communication approach. We want to help youth to get to know themselves better and express themselves in an open, noninvasive way. We want to encourage new generations to connect with other people through empathy, acceptance, and openness for diversity - working through cards will create a safe and powerful environment, where young people will not be judged or criticized and youth workers and educators will get attractive, innovative and easy to use the tool. Cards will be suitable for all cultures and languages, so it could be used all over Europe.We hope that this tool will cause more workshops addressing youths based on feelings and needs in the are of formal and nonformal education. We believe to form a community of practice, where nonverbal communication will equally accompany the verbal one."

Wires Crossed - Level 2 was the second step of an innovative education programme to promote positive physical and mental well-being, safe risk-taking, self-control and social inclusion among young people through the art of funambulism (tightwire walking with a balancing pole). The project developed competences for youth circus educators and promoted high-quality youth work that is inclusive and reaches young people with fewer opportunities. This project was a continuation of cooperation leading to a large-scale European project led by Galway Community Circus and their partners École de Cirque de Bruxelles and CABUWAZI in 2017-2021 as part of the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture programme. The objectives of the project were to develop skills and competences of youth circus educators; help youth circus organisations increase their capacity; improve health and wellbeing and social, personal and life skills of young people; develop and share effective methods in reaching out to marginalized youth; promote social inclusion, solidarity and intercultural dialogue; help young people with fewer opportunities become more engaged and involved in society; help young refugees become more integrated in their local community and connected to young people in other parts of Europe; and to make funambulism a widely used innovative educational method in youth and social circus sector and beyond. The project was delivered through non-formal education in a youth work setting using the creative and physical methods of youth circus education based on active volunteer participation. It included three Transnational Project Meetings and four staff training events for youth circus trainers. The project set out to develop high-quality skills and competences for twelve youth circus trainers from Belgium, Germany and Ireland. This was done by providing a twelve-month training programme for tutor teams from the partner organisations. During this twelve-month period the youth circus trainers took part in three short-term staff training events in Galway, Berlin and Brussels. The training focused on technical competences in funambulism and pedagogic competences for educators, rigging and safety as well as skills to work with diverse target groups. The Wires Crossed - Level 2 project educated alumni of 'Wires Crossed - A Balancing Act for Europe Level 1' Strategic Partnership organised in 2017/18 in further pedagogical and technical funambulism skills at a more advanced level. The funambulism training used the methodology developed by the partners and an expert team during the first Wires Crossed Erasmus+ project. The LTT activities successfully tested and evaluated the methodology, allowing for improvements, revisions and further development for its use in other future funambulism pedagogy projects in Europe. The final methodology will now be disseminated to other European countries in the next phase of the wider Wires Crossed project. The funambulism training during the LTT activities was facilitated by a funambulism Expert Team from the European Centre of Funambulism, made up of funambule master Denis Josselin, funambulism technical and pedagogical expert Bruno Frenette and co-ordinated by Vincent Wauters. Denis and Bruno each led 2 LTT activities in this project. The project themes of 'mental health & wellbeing', 'social inclusion', 'engagement and participation of marginalised youth and young people with fewer opportunities' and 'innovative projects to support young people’s development' are highlighted in the EU Strategy for Youth Investing and Empowering Youth, EU 2020 – Youth on the move and the priorities of Erasmus+. The Wires Crossed project is the first of its kind in the word and the project results will be used to play a continual key role in building capacity and international and cross-sectoral cooperation for the growing youth circus sector in Ireland, Belgium, Germany and beyond. The results of the project will be shared widely through the International Youth and Social Circus Network CARAVAN and through European partnerships/organisations, such as the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture.The Wires Crossed activities to date will be showcased at a major funambulism event in Galway in August 2020 as part of the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. 400 participants from all strands of the project will be involved in a highwire crossing of the River Corrib and Claddagh Basin in Galway over a continual period of 2020 minutes. The event will provide a public display of solidarity, highlighting the importance of looking after mental health and wellbeing within our communities. Long-term benefits of the project include improvement in physical and mental wellbeing and social inclusion among young people, improved quality of youth circus education on offer across Europe, and Youth and Social Circus/education becoming a more widely recognized tool for social change.

Wires Crossed - Balancing Act for Europe project came about from the desire to provide an inclusive, safe and engaging outlet for young people to take part in physical and creative activities which enhance their sense of well-being. The project partners were Galway Community Circus from Ireland, École de Cirque de Bruxelles from Belgium and CABUWAZI from Germany - all youth circus schools which use circus arts education as a tool for social, personal and community development and for promoting social inclusion and positive physical and mental wellbeing. The project reacted to the hidden crisis on youth mental health in Europe by preparing a training for youth circus trainers in funambulism (tightwire walking with a balancing pole) - an activity that combines physical activity, mental well-being techniques and circus arts. All three areas help young people by providing opportunities for self-expression, building self-confidence, social interaction and integration as well as improving their control over symptoms of anxiety and depression. They also increase positive risk taking both physically and emotionally, they promote physical health and body awareness, increase self-confidence and self-efficacy, improves social connectedness, teamwork, and leadership skills within the group and enables participants to acquire a broadened skill base relating to circus as well as more generic 'life skills'. This project was the first European project of a multi-annual programme, 'Wires Crossed', delivered by Galway Community Circus as one of the anchor projects of Galway European Capital of Culture 2020. Wires Crossed are leading to a large-scale Galway 2020 project culminating in big community gathering in Galway in June 2020 where 400 people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds from all around Europe cross the River Corrib on tightwires to celebrate diversity and highlight the importance of physical and mental well-being.There were two groups of participants in the project - 12 youth circus tutors learning how to teach funambulism to young people and 12 youth participants with fewer opportunities (including young refugees) taking a part in a youth exchange.The project activities comprised of:- Two transnational meetings of project coordinators in Galway and Brussels.- Three professional trainings in Galway and Brussels led by French funambulism experts Denis Josselin and Bruno Frenette for the group of 12 youth circus tutors that enabled them to teach funambulism in heights up to 2 meters and gave them basic rigging and health and safety training necessary for delivering funambulism activities. Two of the trainings also included the crossing of a waterway on the tightwire - over a canal in Brussels and the Claddagh Pool in Galway City. [To see a video of crossing in Galway please go to: http://bit.ly/2o8bzan]- A youth exchange in Berlin for young people from the three partner countries which brought together youth participants from disadvantaged backgrounds and young refugees. All of the initial project objectives were met: - To develop the skills & competences of youth circus trainers- To improve the health & wellbeing and social, personal & life skills of participants- To develop and share effective methods of reaching out to marginalized youth- To promote social inclusion, solidarity & intercultural dialogue- To help young people with fewer opportunities to become more engaged & involved in society- To help young refugees become more integrated in their local community & connected to youth in other parts of Europe- To help youth circus organisations increase their capacity- To make funambulism a widely used innovative educational method in the youth & social circus sector and beyondThis project has helped establish a methodology for teaching funambulism to young people in the participating schools and their local partner organisations (please see a best practice document attached). Thanks to the thorough training that the 12 youth circus tutors received there can be first funambulism workshops for young people bringing all the mentioned benefits to young people in Ireland, Belgium and Germany.This methodology will be disseminated to partner youth circus schools which are members of International Youth and Social Circus Network CARAVAN. funding for Level 2 training for the first twelve tutors to provide them with further training in funambulism and teaching in heights over four meters along with health and safety training and rigging. this was approved in April 2018 through the Irish national agency. And we are awaiting a funding decision to being 5 new partner countries into the project.