From the first January 2015 terroristic attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris up to the August attack 2017 on the famous Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona, fear and rhetoric of insecurity across Europe increased exponentially. A rise in hate speech against migrants and Muslims has been noted, whereas in Italy, for instance, in February 2018 a far-right Italian extremist shot six Africans in a racially motivated attack. Moreover, in the fall of 2015 Europe was finally faced with what North African and Middle-Eastern countries have been experiencing for years: the arrival of pronounced numbers of refugees, who braved the extreme hardship and uncertainty of the so called Western Balkans migratory route. What has quickly been mistermed as “refugee crisis” – since it is factually a crisis of the European Union and a crisis of the nation-states’ response – has additionally increased intolerance and hate speech that spread particularly fast over online social media. Reactions to this obvious intensification of hateful online commentary in EU member states, however, were not uniform. While France opted for a crack-down on Facebook hate sites, other countries seem to have preferred a much more conservative response; one much more in line with the United States’ dictum of freedom of speech. So, following the necessity to coordinate a common response to Online Hate speech, on 31th May 2016, the European Commission presented with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube a “Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online”. The four IT companies accepted to share the European Commission's and EU Member States' commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online. In spite of that, the Internet offers the possibility of every user/participant to create, publish, distribute and consume media content fostering therefore a space of full participation, engagement and self-expression. The development of online social networks, in particular, has increased the level of youth participation in cyberspace in a variety of ways ranging from keeping in touch with peers and developing new contacts to sharing content and exploring self-expression. Online space, just as online space, presents new opportunities, challenges but especially threats to young people which are not aware what is online hate speech, of its real potential consequences, of its hateful narratives and who are the online perpetrators of hate speech. So, the project “Counter Hate” focused on promoting high-quality youth work aiming to provide youth workers all the necessary knowledge and tools on online hate speech against migrants and refugees, and improve the preventative capabilities of youth workers by producing tailored responses, counter-narratives, and awareness raising campaigns. The direct target group of the project were youth workers and youth leaders. The project included the realization of: -Project website. -One project survey and release of project survey report.-One Moodle platform which host the e-learning courses (IO1). -Two Intellectual Output (IOs), namely, e-learning courses (IO1) and CH digital guide (IO2). -Three Transnational Project Meetings. -One training event for staff training (C1). -Online and local disseminations activities. Project results were achieved through a careful project planning and defined project methodology. The following methodology was applied: Plan, Do, Check, Act. This aimed to constantly monitor the project advancement and to ensure permanent quality improvement. At the same time, in other project activities, such as local workshops, Training event etc.. (C1) was applied a non-formal methodology approach. Moreover, all the intellectual outputs and project activities were realized in a way that allowed the new trained youth workers and the partners organisations to produce a positive impact on medium/long terms by: 1. contributing to a better understanding of how Internet and social media can be used for preventing and combating online hate speech against migrants and refugees with targeted tools, responses, and best practices; 2. analysing hate speeches more rapidly and, specifically, better identifying and understanding anti-migrant and anti-refugee hatred online, also in order to prevent radicalisation leading to violent extremism; 3. proactively targeting the needs of different target stakeholder groups (in particular, youth organisations and NGO) and supporting them in the fight against racism and xenophobia; 4. improving, monitoring and reporting capabilities on hate speech online following the social media reporting rules of Council of Europe. 5. breaking down anti-migrant and anti-refugee stereotypes and reducing fear of crime and social distress. The Transferability and sustainability strategy guarantee the overall exploitation of the project results also in the next years and all digital materials produced will be kept on project website for the next years to come.Additionally, all partners will check the opportunities offered by the new Erasmus+ programme 2021-2027 and apply new projects in the field of online hate speech.

ROE's main objective was to provide youth workers all the necessary knowledge and tools to help young people develop their critical thinking skills as many of them are exposed to radical propaganda and often make an improper use of internet. All youth workers reached from ROE are now able to provide positive online counter-narratives, recognizing online negative messages and encourage intercultural dialogue and personal exchanges between young people as a key method of building resilience to extremist propaganda.The main target group of ROE were youth workers as well as ROE outcomes and outputs targeted youth workers and professionals working in the field of youth. Indeed, the “Needs and Challenges Analysis Report” report (A2), e-learning courses (IO1), the digital guide of best practices (IO2), the training event (C1), the several dissemination activities conducted both offline and online allowed ROE consortium to reach more than 2000 people. However, this number can be higher because it does not take in consideration the digital guide of best practices (IO2) (available in all partners languages) which was the final output of the project and have the potential to reach and be used by other people working in the field of youth.Beyond the project management & implementation realized by partners, the following activities were undertaken:1. Needs and Challenges Analysis Report (A2): This document was built using data collection through online questionnaires carried out in four countries, Denmark, Austria, Spain and Bulgaria. The main findings of the report were used to define the needs and challenges of youth workers regarding the digital and media literacy skills that they need in order to address the current youth radicalisation crisis in Europe. The results of the report were used for the elaboration of the e-learning courses (Output 1) of the project.2. E-learning courses (IO1) and creation of Moodle online platform: All youth workers that taken the online courses achieved the following learning outcomes:-Understand key definitions and current trends related to youth radicalization and violent extremism.-Understand what makes youth vulnerable to radicalization.-Get to know how to recognize the indicators that radicalization might be taking place and have a clear understanding of their responsibilities-Learn how to build online counter-narrative and youth awareness programmes.3. Training event (C1) which took place in Bansko (Bulgaria) between 24-29 June 2018. In the training participated youth workers coming from Bulgaria, Austria, Spain and Denmark. The idea of the training event was to share best practices regarding youth work and risk of marginalization and radicalization as well as:-Raise awareness of the treats that social media tools have for youth at risk of radicalization and how youth workers can use them to traverse the language barrier and to tackle the threat of online extremism.-Know and learn methods of use and management of social media for reaching out youth, thanks both to the comparison with the other participants to the best practices shown.4. Digital Guide of best practice (IO2) (available in five languages): This output provides youth workers with updated knowledge, tools and examples of good practices in the field of preventing online radicalization. Thus, this guide gathered a useful set of guidelines, methods and case studies to be used by any youth worker interested in online de-radicalization.5. Offline & online dissemination events which involved other youth workers and interested stakeholders.Results and impact attained:- The project was directly aimed to youth workers in the field of disadvantaged youth. They benefited from educational content to improve their management skills regarding to youth work.- The youth workers benefited in terms of motivation, commitment, tools and methods. They now have a greater satisfaction in their volunteer commitment and perform better quality of youth work. Their level of skills improved and these skills will be also transferable to other volunteer engagements or even in the job market.- Youth workers and other organizations staff involved in learning activities benefited from improved youth work: more committed and motivated youth workers, more consistency between regardless of youth workers involved in learning activities. This results in creating more impact in the awareness raising activities, improve learning impact, extended learning opportunities in the field of youth and eventually more sustainable results and impact of the activities.- Organisations involved benefited from improve processes and results, therefore they optimized available resources for new activities such as tackling the radicalization of youth and new opportunities. The project aimed to contribute to sustainability and capacity building of the organizations that now can count on new OERs.

The number of people seeking refugee status in Europe has soared over recent years. This is due in large part to war in Syria and Iraq. As thousands of refugees and migrants move across Europe, many are making use of technology in order to make their journey safer and share life-or-death information. For refugees coming from war-torn Syria or Iraq, the digital infrastructure is as essential as food and shelter. It is a blessing but also a curse. The digital traces that they leave behind make refugees vulnerable to surveillance, intimidation and exploitation by state and non-state actors. Fears about security and privacy force them to depend upon unreliable and alternative sources circulating on social media by smugglers, dealers and handlers. Going digitally underground, for example by using closed platforms like WhatsApp, exposes refugees to even greater risks.Nevertheless, there are gaps inside NGOs as to how ICTs and social media are employed by volunteers and youth workers for the purpose of helping migrants before, during and after their migration journey, as well as related to the use of social media by migrants for integration in host countries, to maintaining family relations, sustaining cultural identities and in supporting a family from abroad. NGOs opening new communication channels through social media and empowering their volunteers with new social media skills can transform migrant networks and thus facilitate migration by creating a rich source of “insider knowledge” on migration.Volunteers 4 All (V4A) aims to foster digital skills of volunteers and youth workers in order to provide support to refugees during their journey to Europe but also to promote social inclusion, tolerance, respect for diversity and non-discrimination and to raise awareness. All participants’ involved in the project will be youth workers or volunteers interested in working and dealing with young refugees and interested in the use of social media in their daily work of youth workers/volunteers.All the 24 participants that will participate to the training event (C1) will sign up a specific agreement with their sending organizations where will be set as duty the responsibility to attend obligatory the training event but also to take all the e-learning courses (IO1) from the project website and to participate to other local dissemination activities that will take place in each partner organization overall the life of the project. 30 people will join the multiplier event (E1) and other 500 people will participate indirectly to the project.ALTERNATIVI as an applicant will oversee effective Project Management at each steps: implementation, monitoring and evaluation and final closing. ALTERNATIVI will manage the overall budget and allocate the resources accordingly to the partners involved. All activities have been planned according to the SMART principle and happened through a non-formal education method. This is to say that partners have previously agreed on and working towards:Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound objectives.Impact:-The project is directly aimed to youth workers and volunteer team in the field of youth and migrants issues. They will benefit from educational content to improve their management skills regarding to youth work.-The youth workers will benefit in terms of motivation, commitment, tools and methods. Their level of skills will improve and these skills will be also transferable to other volunteer engagements or even in the job market.-Youth workers and other organizations staff involved in learning activities will benefit from improved youth work: more committed and motivated youth workers, more consistency between regardless of youth workers involved in learning activities. This results in creating more impact in the awareness raising activities and extended learning opportunities in the field of youth.-Organisations involved will benefit from improve processes and results, therefore optimize available resources for new activities such as tackling the radicalisation of youth and new opportunities. The project aims to contribute to sustainability and capacity building of the organization.Therefore the project will eventually results in the creation of self-sustained initiatives and activities in the field of youth. After the project implementation, the collaborative networks and cooperation consortiums of the partnering organisations will be an important channels to reach the target groups and disseminate the project further. Annual and peridocial international conferences, seminars, workshops and other meetings, which are based on active working methods with sessions, workshops and seminar presentations, will provide excellent forums for reaching the project target groups and disseminating the project results. Thus the results of the project benefit not only the consortium members, but also the organisations throughout Europe, even globally.

"El 17 de enero de 2018, la Comisión Europea lanzó el Plan de Acción de Educación Digital para mejorar las competencias clave y las habilidades digitales de los ciudadanos europeos. El Plan de acción para la educación digital describe cómo la UE puede ayudar a las personas, las instituciones educativas y los sistemas educativos a adaptarse mejor a la vida y al trabajo en una era de rápidos cambios digitales. Esta iniciativa de la comisión europea se debe al hecho de que Europa se enfrenta a una transformación digital radical de su sociedad y economía. Ya el 90% de todos los trabajos requieren al menos algún nivel de habilidades digitales. A pesar del alto nivel de desempleo juvenil, hay dos millones de vacantes laborales en Europa, muchas en nuevos campos digitales. Formar y recapacitar a los jóvenes para prepararlos para el mercado laboral es más necesario que nunca.Según el informe Brecha de habilidades digitales en Europa (19 de octubre de 2017), la demanda de especialistas en tecnología de la información y las comunicaciones está creciendo rápidamente. En el futuro, 9 de cada 10 trabajos requerirán habilidades digitales. Al mismo tiempo, el informe reveló que el 44% de los europeos entre 16 y 74 años no tienen habilidades digitales básicas, por lo que un gran porcentaje de los jóvenes europeos carecen de habilidades digitales básicas. Entonces, la situación actual puede describirse como una paradoja tecnológica en la que los jóvenes consumen rápidamente la nueva tecnología, pero en muchos casos carecen de las habilidades y / o interés para dominar esta tecnología y usarla de maneras más críticas y creativas.Considerando la creciente digitalización de la sociedad, por lo tanto, es más importante que nunca que los trabajadores juveniles desarrollen sus propias habilidades digitales y pedagógicas. Por lo tanto, el proyecto ""Youth Workers 2.0"" tenía como objetivo proporcionar orientación y capacitación a los trabajadores juveniles de toda Europa sobre cómo utilizar las herramientas de las TIC y los métodos digitales para mejorar las habilidades básicas de educación juvenil. Esto se hizo a través de un enfoque integrador en la recopilación, el intercambio y la difusión de prácticas innovadoras e inclusivas de enseñanza y aprendizaje utilizando herramientas TIC y métodos digitales.Todas las actividades del proyecto se dirigieron a miembros activos (trabajadores juveniles) de las organizaciones asociadas, pero las actividades de difusión local estaban abiertas a organizaciones juveniles nacionales u otras estructuras juveniles interesados por la sostenibilidad de las organizaciones juveniles. Todos los participantes en tales actividades tenían experiencia o estaban interesados en las TIC y en adquirir nuevas habilidades digitales para proyectos juveniles.El proyecto había sido diseñado durante 20 meses y se realizó en 3 fases consecutivas principales. Los comentarios de todos los trabajadores juveniles involucrados se utilizaron para la mejora continua del proyecto, utilizando el método PDCA (planificar, hacer, verificar, actuar):Fase uno: configuración del proyecto, fase de planificación e investigación (mes 1 al mes 7).Fase dos: fase de implementación de actividades del proyecto (mes 8 al mes 14).Fase tres: diseño de la guía digital de mejores prácticas (IO2), actividades locales y en línea, fase de evaluación del proyecto, cierre (mes 15 al mes 20).El proyecto tuvo las siguientes actividades principales:-Página web del proyecto.-Un producto intelectual (Guía digital).-Tres encuentros internacionales.-Dos informes de análisis de necesidades.-Actividades de difusión en línea y locales.El principal impacto del proyecto fue el siguiente:-El proyecto estaba dirigido directamente a trabajadores juveniles de organizaciones juveniles, por lo que se beneficiaron principalmente de los contenidos educativos para mejorar sus habilidades digitales que favorecerán el empoderamiento de los jóvenes.-Los trabajadores juveniles se beneficiaron en términos de motivación, compromiso, herramientas y métodos. Tenían una mayor satisfacción en su compromiso voluntario y desempeñan mejor el trabajo juvenil. Su nivel de habilidades mejoró y estas habilidades también serán transferibles a otros trabajadores juveniles en otras organizaciones.-Las organizaciones juveniles involucradas en actividades de aprendizaje se beneficiaron del trabajo juvenil mejorado.-Las organizaciones involucradas se beneficiaron de mejores procesos y resultados, por lo tanto, optimizan los recursos disponibles para nuevas actividades, como el empoderamiento de jóvenes poco calificados o desfavorecidos mediante la transferencia de habilidades digitales básicas. El proyecto tenía como objetivo contribuir al desarrollo de capacidades de las organizaciones.Además, todos los socios comprobarán las oportunidades que ofrece el programa Erasmus + 2021-2027 y aplicarán nuevos proyectos en el campo de la educación digital juvenil."

The aim of the project is to analyze the problems of training in vocational schools with regard to students and their motivation to study, which in many cases is very low for several reasons. 1st - students generally have low motivation and engagement to study, 2nd - they are coming from socially disadvantaged families and often from excluded communities, 3rd - some students are coming from minority groups and from immigrant families whom may not be aware of opportunities available. This situation needs to be addressed by creating a system for the preparation of future teachers and teachers of these schools in order to enable young teachers (graduates of pedagogical faculties) to be prepared not only as teachers of vocational subjects but also as pedagogical and social counselors who are able to motivate students to participate in the study and to protect them from unfinished studies. In order to achieve these results, it is necessary to know the situation in schools and that is why all types of educational institutions (trans-sectoral) are involved in the project. This requires systematic preparation of teachers and trainers for apprenticeships. Vocational education is the most endangered category, as it does not give many opportunities to take part in education at another school when leaving vocational school before graduation. That is the reason why this project will deal in particular with the working activities of teachers in these educational establishments.The entire consortium consists of partners who have the necessary experience in project activities. Educa International as the project applicant has dealt with this issue in 3 projects (Erasmus, European Structure Fund Project). The school in Malmö (Sweden), participated in a joint project with Educa International in 2012-2015 and both institutions still continue to work together. Vocational school in Sezimovo Ústí (CZ) implements a drop-outs support programme and has excellent experiences and very good results from this work, which will be used for the objectives of this project. The Slovak partner is very interested in drop-out prevention, too. Austrian partner has a lot of practical and theoretical knowledge to support the project.Dissemination activities will be targeted at all training centers, vocational schools in participating countries and also in the other countries of the EU. The aim of the project team is a stronger influence in new EU countries who joined the EU in 2004 or later due missing the big EU pilot project Second Chance School realized in EU countries in the period between 1997-2000. The new EU countries have not benefitted form the project and drop-out prevention system is not developped. Therefore, the interest is to target dissemination activities mainly at Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia. It is important to promote the project results not only in schools, but also in regional offices, Ministries of Education and other stakeholders.