CULTURAL HERITAGE, NEW TECHNIQUES AND SUSTAINABILIY SHAPE OUR IDENTITIES AND LIVES The regions Friesland (NL), Central Bulgaria (BG), Valencia (ES) bear a wealth of intangible heritage, such as traditions, knowledge of old crafts and social networks. What all regions have in common as well is waste. It has become essential to create a circular economy in which the reuse of products and raw materials is maximised and their value destruction minimised. In Craft Your Future students examine whether the advancing technology and trends can help revitalize old crafts using waste as raw material. STUDENTS IN THE LEAD The rise of youth unemployment in the EU underlines the necessity to spark a dynamic and positive attitude among young people towards enterprising behaviour, networking skills and pro-activity. Learning by doing and educating students to take initiative and investigate opportunities themselves, rather than waiting for others to take the initiative, will increase employability. Craft Your Future addresses this need by the key focus on the initiative of the student. OBJECTIVES Craft your Future recognises that young people in Europe must look outwards and proactively engage with the challenges and opportunities that our modern globalising world provides. What trends & new technologies (e.g. 3D printing and laser cutting but also the use of big data, new ways of interacting, social entrepreneurship, circular economy) are feeding into our society today that can lift traditional crafts to the 21st century? Concretely, Craft your Future aims to: • Let VET students become closer to and more involved with their regions old crafts and traditions and cherish it. • Ensure young people have the power, knowledge and competences to be the change for sustainability that our world needs. • Educate VET students to be the innovators in the companies they will work for in the future by letting become aware of trends & new technologies and learn how to spot them. • Start the inter-cultural conversation and exchange between youngsters about cultural heritage (traditional crafts), trends & new techniques and the circular economy, let them discover what their regions have in common and how using trends & new techniques can push traditional crafts to the 21st century in a circular economy. • Increase the pool of work based learning opportunities for students in order to develop their competences for future working life. • Preserve cultural heritage by using culture as a driver for creative innovation, turning intangible tradition and waste management issues into a real future by using trends and new techniques. • Develop VET teachers’ skills by letting them to work with their students on ‘real-life’ cases. • Reinforce VET colleges network by setting up a cooperation with regional stakeholders. • Create a bridge between generations. The young generation will understand the elder generation better by getting to know them through their craft knowledge and stories and vice versa. PARTICIPANTS Craft Your Future is aimed at VET students from all fields of education, thus creating a cross-sector approach and allowing students from not only different countries but also different backgrounds to learn from each other. Secondly it is aimed at VET teachers and VET colleges anf world of work stakeholders (local authorities, cultural centres, regional craftsmen, artists, (social) businesses, etc.). ACTIVITIES Craft Your Future students are in the lead to 1) investigate challenges and opportunities on the cutting edge of traditional crafts, trends & new technologies and the circular economy, 2) design innovative solutions to the challenge of waste recycling by using traditional crafts and trends & new technologies, 3) propose solutions and innovations to the world of work and develop community strategies to convince communities to buy local & sustainable. Craft Your Future will develop the following tangible products: • IO1 - Craft your Future - Student Training Programme • IO2 - Craft your Future - Regional Alliance set-up toolkit • IO3 - Craft Your Future - Regional strategy and action plan • IO4 - Craft your Future - Online Community METHODOLOGY Craft Your Future is a true Strategic Partnership meaning all partners provide their key input that contributes to the realisation of the project goals and concrete deliverables. IMPACT & LONG TERM BENEFITS The Craft Your Future project unites educational institutions, students, local authorities, creative centres and (social) businesses in creating a strategy that help regions use intangible cultural heritage to increase their attractiveness, boost local economies and build a future based on regional resources. Craft Your Future ensures young people have the power, knowledge and competences to be the change for sustainability (in the broadest sense) that our world needs.

The goal of the Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability (L4IDS) project is to promote sustainable consumption and production of products and services in Europe. This will be achieved through a knowledge co-creation process and the development of training materials in order to teach and train students, faculty and enterprise staff of the design sector in Innovative Design for Sustainability (IDfS) strategies. The focus is on social business and educational innovation, enabling the creation of sustainable products and services, aligned with European Circular Economy policies and, in turn, a more sustainable society. The initiative aims at strengthening the triad Knowledge co-creation-Design for Sustainability-Innovation where there is a lack of specific learning schemes, courses, and teaching materials at higher education and through continuous professional development.To support the delivery of this project, country hubs (CH) have been developed in four European countries (Ireland, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands). Each hub includes universities, enterprises and National Design Associations. The cross-Europe hubs assure a comprehensive European approach in IDfS. The involvement of National Design Associations will catalyse the integration and dissemination of project outcomes within the European design sector.The Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability project will provide the current and future designers of Europe with:- A common vision of Design for Sustainability (DfS) - Innovation and Entrepreneurial opportunities through DfS for Industry (Benchmarking, Internships)- Open Educational Resources (OER) for teaching and training design stakeholders (students, faculty and enterprises’ staff)- Innovative learning environments (teaching resources and knowledge co-creation processes) for IDfS between universities and enterprises.- Skills for applying IDfS

SITUATION AND CHALLENGESince the entry of the assembly line, we have segregated our ‘head and hands’ so to say, both in education and in the field of work. On the other hand, we now witness a growing interest for producing local products and circular and sustainable design and an increasing demand for skilled workers who can think and act. This shift demands a new young professional.AMBITIONBy using both our HEAD and our HANDSs, we reach our HEART. The student who is inventive, knows about material, is skilled, is focused and has a team spirit, has the future. We aim to create a recommitment to the vocational arts, in education and in life. Students learn to follow the path of their tendency and talent, rather than relegating everyone to a college prep tract.By challenging students to take their time, perform trial & error activities, we appeal to them to be clever and crafty. This also includes prolonging their attention span and be able to work in a focused manner on long term assignments, viewing an assignment from all angles. Our ambition is to educate skills in a cross subject manner to create context for students. The combination of alpha, beta and gamma subjects in one task challenges students to be more exploring, creative, ingenious and inventive. Important aspect here is to create the circumstances for students to “learn to learn” this way. STUDENTS IN THE LEADThe youth unemployment in the EU underlines the necessity to spark a dynamic and positive attitude among young people towards enterprising behaviour, networking skills and pro-activity. Learning by doing and educating students to take initiative and investigate opportunities themselves, will increase employability. Smart Hands addresses this need by the key focus on the initiative of the student.OBJECTIVESSmart Hands recognises that young people in Europe must look outwards and proactively engage with the challenges and opportunities that our modern world provides. Concretely, Smart Hands aims to:• Ensure young people have the power, knowledge and competences to become creative, inventive, social thinkers, co-operators, problem solvers, and makers all together.• Equip teachers with a multidisciplinary student training programme based on our HANDS-HEAD-HEART approach directly involving the world-of-work and the local community.• Increase the pool of work based learning opportunities and ‘real-life’ assignments for students in order to develop their competences for future working life.• Provide school leaders with the tools to embed the HANDS-HEAD-HEART approach throughout the school and support to inspire their peer school leaders.• Provide parents with insights into modern ways of education and opportunities of further education or work for their children, fitting their own specific talents.• Reinforce secondary school-VET colleges-HE institute network by setting up a cooperation with regional stakeholders. PARTICIPANTSSmart Hands is primarily aimed at the final beneficiaries: secondary school students from all fields of education. Secondly it is aimed at their teachers and school leaders, family and world of work stakeholders (local authorities, (social) businesses, etc.).Smart Hands puts students in the lead with their HANDS, HEAD and HEART to 1) investigate challenges and opportunities on the cutting edge of 1) crafts, design & arts, 2) math-physics-chemistry and related trends & new technologies and 3) cooperation & leadership skills. Smart Hands enables students to work on multi-sided real-life assignments in the class room, online and on location. Bringing students closer to and more engaged with the outside world, consisting of: their region and community, further education opportunities, and (the world of) work.OUTPUTOur activities consist of training weeks Smart Hands will develop the following tangible products:-IO1 - Smart Hands - Student Training Programme-IO2 - Smart Hands Cascade Training Materials & Handbooks for School Leaders-IO3 - HANDS-HEAD-HEART in the classroom - Teachers Guide-IO4 - Smart Hands AT HOME! - Parents’ GuideMETHODOLOGYSmart Hands is a true Strategic Partnership involving 5 secondary schools, 3 expert partners and 1 pan-European education innovation network. All partners provide their key input that contributes to the realisation of the project goals and concrete deliverables.IMPACT & LONG TERM BENEFITSThe Smart Hands project enables schools to adopt an integrated multidisciplinary HANDS-HEAD-HEART approach to student talent discovery and development, putting students in the lead and involving the world-of-work and the local community directly. This to ensure young people have the power, knowledge and competences future working life to become creative, inventive, social thinkers, co-operators, problem solvers, and makers all together.

<< Background >>The European Green Deal drafts the needs of action to succeed in its sustainable and inclusive growth strategy, addressing both efficient resource use in a circular economy and restoring biodiversity and ecosystem´s health, along with the recent Farm to Fork Strategy. Moreover, the reflection on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has become a fundamental element in municipalities and regional strategies for the transition to a sustainable and fair society. Implementation of such plans would require raising social consciousness and concern about main environmental challenges while providing social tools and schemes to approach behavioural change and systemic transformations. Promoting local-food cultural heritage through cross-generational engagement and providing local-adapted educational tools to socially transform agri-food systems are two of the main alignments with recently approved european plans mentioned above.<< Objectives >>Design and develop the training plan and materials needed to build up a toolkit containing teaching tools focused on traditional knowledge on food processing issues addressed to teach their agri-food system´s engagement, complexity, adaptiveness and variety.Design and develop toolkit for data recording including cross-sectional instruments, such as visual art tools.Build-up and develop an open-access GIS-based repository to share local traditional knowledge on food processing.<< Implementation >>4 transnational meetings realized: two planned face to face (TM1 and TM4) and two online (TM2 and TM3)1 training activity (C1) which also requires 1 transnational meeting.3 Multiplayer events (E1, E2 and E3) as a dissemination of all project results.<< Results >>R1. Design and development of a pedagogical plan and training materials.R2. Design and development of 4 toolkits for registering the information through visual art tools.R3. Design and development of a GIS-based repository to share local traditional knowledge on food processing.