"Today we live in a globalized world and are processing information from a wider variety of sources than ever before. Many are confronted with a flood of information with which they are sometimes overwhelmed or unable to handle or classify. This project under the theme #IMMUNE TO OPINION MANIPULATION shall help to discover fake news and political manipulation. Educators and young people need the skills to navigate potential pitfalls. Especially in the age of social media, manipulation is increasingly present. Misleading narratives become the basis for political opinion formation and debate. To curb this development and the threat it poses to democratic deliberation, political self-determination and freedom, it is crucial that educators have the knowledge and media literacy skills needed to counteract these threats through their teaching and in order to appropriately guide and train the young people they work with.Filter bubbles, nudging, social bots and algorithms are some of the aspects that play a role in manipulation. Ultimately, idea is to make the veil behind social media visible by posing the threats that come along with it. For example, the political significance of algorithmic models lies in the fact that they can influence social behavior to a significant degree without the user being aware. Companies such as GAFAN (as in Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix), which possess widespread and potent algorithmic models, can be ""governmental"" enterprises that at the same time are not subject to democratic control. Hence, manipulative technologies need to be viewed critically as they can lead to the targeted incapacitation of citizens and may even influence the results of elections. Being unchecked they can erode democracy and therefore the fundament of the EU.The general objective of this project is to address this challenge among educators through an innovative train-the-trainer format. The specific objectives are: -Providing youth educators(direct target group)with useful skills and action-oriented methods on how to develop the digital competence of young people (indirect target group/ end user beneficiaries)-Increasing understanding of how and why emotional manipulation works in social media communication, providing effective strategies and resources to help them counteract this -Increasing the media literacy of young people in an age of fake news and political manipulation on the Internet (and particularly in social media)The proposed project is meant as a kick-starter of a more extended endeavor across the EU. The train-the-trainer format will have an impact on different levels.For educators involved in the training as facilitators the impact will be:-Greater understanding on the importance of the power of fake news and political manipulation on the Internet (and particularly in social media) as well as its impact on active democratic participation-Concrete knowledge, skills and competences for identifying manipulative techniques (e.g. filter bubbles, nudging, social bots, and algorithms)-Access to innovative training contents, resources and materials-Increased network with an international group of trainersFor young people who are involved in testing the program during the pilot phase the impact will be:-Increased awareness of the power of manipulating emotionally and politically on the Internet (particularly on social media)-Improved knowledge to read between the lines-Increased competences to manage a media-saturated environment(particularly online/social media)-Increased skills to read critically and write in a wide range of message forms-Improved learning achievements and personal growth-Increased interest in being more active in society-Increased self-confidence to engage in social media activities-New contacts and network for further support and developmentFor the involved project partners the impact will be:-Increased level of cooperation with the project partners-Improved knowledge, skills and competences on media manipulation, tools to detect it, media literacy, critical thinking, and their connection to active (digital)citizenship-Increased knowledge on game-based educational methods-Increased knowledge, skills and competences with IT-based learning-Enriched experience with creative and innovative methods-Increased capacity to operate at EU/international level-Innovative and improved way of operating towards their target groupsFor other relevant stakeholders, such as educational non-formal institutions, training associations, etc. the impact will be:-Access to innovative and learner-centered learning methods and contents-Access to good practice examples on how to embed media literacy education into existing educational and training offersOnly by being informed of the structural conditions fueling its circulation, one can shape resilience against fake news and political manipulation for both the educators and young people."

CANDIICE is a five-country collaboration to provide:- active creative, arts-based learning resources using digital technologies and associated staff training to help future generations make democracy work inclusively for their harmonious futures- institutional change resources- wider implementation guidanceDuring the 2019 – 2022 period of Erasmus funding, CANDIICE.eu will grow into an inspiring online training and resource hub for all educators wishing to expand their uses of creativity, collaboration and learner empowerment. Continual work to rethink and improve genuine inclusion is essential as communities become more diverse – our methodologies are focused on recognising the changing attitudes and forces that deprive and exclude and will promote new uses of digital learning (often non-verbal) to ensure that marginal and disadvantaged learners play their full part. CANDIICE.eu will provide flexible training modules suitable for educators in different sectors of formal and informal education. They will be designed to fit into existing training structures to maximise adaptable ease of use. Training will build capacity, confidence and inspiration to incorporate creative flair into this most important aspect of education for a future inclusive Europe. Additional materials for education leaders and policymakers will give detailed recommendations and strategic guidance at the institution, locality and national levels to provide a roadmap to update citizenship education so that it successfully reinforces inclusive, pluralist democracy in a digital age. Educators responsible for citizenship learning carry a massive responsibility – to ensure that future generations understand and build successful coexistence in changing, diverse communities. A universal commitment to common European values is the bedrock of peaceful coexistence; until recently we assumed that established democratic processes would defend these basic tenets. The mechanisms of democracy have been severely jolted by rapid changes in communications technology, many groups in our populations have been left behind, or excluded in different ways. Citizenship education with extensive digital awareness is the space where future generations must formulate a sophisticated understanding of their part in a democratic future: whether they can be collaborative agents of change or disempowered consumers of manipulated attention and attitudes. CANDIICE.eu will be a major support for educators needing to work effectively in that space.CANDIICE will make exciting new learning materials and associated training freely available through CANDIICE.eu with extensive links through other European online resources and strategic guidance. Materials will be produced through repeated processes of collection and evaluation of best practice, research-based innovation and unique collaborations between our partners: leading European agencies in digital open learning, intercultural inclusion, citizenship, creative community arts, learner empowerment and professional adult education and training.CANDIICE partners are:School Development Support Agency (Lead agency) – Leicester, United Kingdomhttp://www.sdsa.netNational and international project development, networking and training for public services. International training programmes on service leadership and improvement, diversity and inclusion, intercultural education, language diversity, learner co-construction and empowerment.Eurosoc#Digital – Berlin, Germanyhttps://www.eurosoc-digital.orgInnovators of digital, interactive, creative learning exploring European citizenship, plural democratic values, community civic engagement, youth politics and activism.Forum za Slobodu Odgoja – Zagreb, CroatiaForum for Freedom in Educationhttp://www.fso.hr/Teacher training institution specialising in a wide range of unique in-service programmes with extensive international links. Expertise in values, liberal education, citizenship with well-established national impact.Les Tetes de l’Art – Marseille, Francewww.lestetesdelart.frProgressive intercultural community-based arts and creative hub. Innovator of multi-media youth projects. Nova University– Lisbon, Portugalhttps://www.unl.ptInitial teacher education institution specialising in language and intercultural understanding.

Finding and developing ways complementary to existing forms of traditional political communication, dialogue and debate fitting to the needs and interests of the majority of young people today, alienated from political discussions is the core of the project. Addressing and involving such young people that often do not know or care much about Europe, the EU or European integration is a task necessary in European youth work today. Continuously the gap between young people organised in long-standing European youth organisations and those that are not organized (or organised in a different form) increases. In order to not succumb to dialogue with young people that is dominated with the same voices while the others are “speechless”, the project seeks to further develop ways and tools to expand the conversation about the future of Europe and to train multipliers working with them to use these in their activities and projects. To that end, the project addresses on the one hand young people from the participating countries DE, FR, IT and HU between 16 – 27 years old, not interested, aware or keen on their role as European citizens. On the other hand it targets multipliers from diverse fields of education (youth workers, schools, foundations, local administrations etc,) working with these young people and having a decisive influence on their educational settings.Through different stages of combined online and offline working phases on the participative online-pattform Ypart (especially developed for young people), young Europeans are encouraged and supported in telling and sharing “their stories” about life in Europe today as well as their wishes, recommendations and ideas for the future of Europe. In order to achieve a “speechless” dialogue and create an understanding amongst young people from other European countries, these stories will be told in creative formats (photography, video, sketch, street art) and shared with young people from the other countries. In a second round of storytelling it will be task to tell the story of a young person from another country. These “European stories” will then be shared on a “European storytelling festival”. This process shall reach out to between 50 and 100 young people per country (there are no limits, since the online format allows for including many more), with a selected number of 40 young finalists attending the festival.At the same time multipliers working with these young people will be gathered, connected and trained in the usage of the project’s methods focussing on engaging young people in alternative forms of dialogue about Europe and the EU (e.g. storytelling, photography, theatre, etc). Throughout the project, approximately 80 multipliers per country will directly (through attending an activity) benefit from the project. Furthermore, through its extensive dissemination activities and outputs (incl. a summarising handbook and curriculum for multipliers) that are developed to reach out and have a long-lasting impact, even after project completion, an estimated number of 5,000 multipliers in different European countries can be reached.Through its actions and the implementation of combining non-traditional offline tools with online tools, the project reduces the elitist character of European participation and increases the legitimacy of the participation by broadening the spectrum of participants. Moreover, by challenging the participants to discuss and work together despite eventual linguistic barriers and by soliciting the capacity of putting themselves in each other’s shoes in order to tell the stories of their European compatriots, the project enables participants not only to learn and engage themselves throughout the project, but to create close ties, engage them effectively in Europe and European issues and thus strengthen their sense of European citizenship. Multipliers involved in the project gather extensive insight and first-hand experience in working with unconventional, creative and expressive forms of political dialogue and debate with young people about Europe both on local, national and European level. Participation in workshops as well as the many intellectual outputs set them on a path of directly conceptualising, planning and implementing many more youth activities with this target group of participants. Furthermore, through the establishment and offering of local worksshops a connected hub of youth workers, youth organisations, volunteers, staff of foundations and responsible people from local administration comes together to expand their horizons, learn and develop innovative approaches and strategies for involving ALL young people in a participative European dialogue about the future of Europe.

"With the Europe 2020 Strategy of the European Commission, one frequently noted critique on the “European Project” was that from a citizen perspective it appeared to be elitist and lacking popular support. Some perceived the activities and organizations around the “Brussels bubble” promoting the European idea for young people to be addressing and reaching only an already well-informed part of young people that are politically interested. We believed that bringing young people together from diverse cultures serves them to learn about each other and allows them to express openly their hitherto hidden capabilities and open European mind. Since 2008 IHKPG and their involved project partners ALFMED (FR), FOYLE INTERNATIONAL (UK) and HERMES (Malta) have been supporting EU VET mobilities in a very high performance and with great European added value. The project idea of Skills#EU started here by using the existing enthusiasm of the trainees to equip them with the skills necessary to motivate and activate their European citizenship. The Skills#EU project was initiated by IHKPG as VET provider and sending organization in DualVET mobility and partner EUROSOC#DIGITAL (E#D). E#D had high expertise in political education with a strong EU focus and an extensive experience in reaching out to those youngsters. Partner Auxilium belonged to IHKPG's network of providers of non-formal education and has gathered considerable expertise in developing approaches and training programmes related to European citizenship and participation. The six project partners were coming from 5 different countries: Germany, Malta, UK, France and Austria. While the German project leader IHK-PG was a further training institution with lots of experiences in sending young people abroad, ALFMED and FOYLE International have been mainly receiving organisations. HERMES from Malta had great experience in both preparing students for their mobilty program as well as welcoming them. EUROSOC#DIGITAL had complemented the partnership by its profound experience in training civic education to youngsters in German schools. In summary the whole partnership was permanently working with a big number of VET learners from different countries and cultures. The overall aim of Skills#EU was to develop and establish a blended-learning training scheme for young VET learners that accompanied them before, during and after their mobility abroad and equiped them with the means to activate a motivated, positive attitude as European citizen. In order to design a training concept tailored to VET trainees we collected data on the state of the art regarding the trainees´ needs and expectations related to various dimensions of social and civic competences, cultural awareness and expression with the aim of ensuring that our project promotes the acquisition of key competences (IO1 Whitepaper “Skills#EU meets VET in European mobility”). Based on this IO1 we developed IO2 “Curriculum Skills#EU, inluding guidelines for trainers and assessment of learning outcomes”. The curriculum was structured by three provided learning modules: M1: Challenges and Opportunities as European citizen; M2: Understanding, negotiation and decision-making; M3: Intercultural communication. Each module contained separate teaching and training material as attractive collection packed in a special “Skills#EU"" training suitcase and additional as online material. This suitcase included instruction cards for teachers, pack of cards, flags, caps, and additional hints on learning material to be used. All material has been tested in piloting and short term training events in order to guarantee highest quality and flexibility in use. More than 1000 VET learners throughout the project consortium with its mobility networks were using the Skills#EU suitcase to better prepare students for their mobility stay.All project material as well as guidelines referring to the respective methodologies are stored on the website www.yourskills.eu and as OER in the EU project results platform VALOR. Our website is linked to our IO6 “European Peer Learning platform Peers#EU”. VET learners in ERASMUS+ mobilities learned a great deal by explaining their ideas to other participants and by taking part in activities in which they could learn from their peers. Go abroad – talk about – and learn from experiences! We built a bridge between VET and policy thus promoting European citizenship, youth participation, cultural diversity within VET mobility. Therefore, the project outcomes were contributing to the development of a European attitude, norms and values. This required a European dialogue which was taking place within the Skills#EU project. The project was innovative because it connected “formalized” VET learners mobility with the informal learning goals of the ""Youth in Action"", a new challenge across sectors. All material is free for use and available both on Moodle and on the Website www.yourskills.eu."

MEGA - Make Europe Great Again - is a project that aims to strengthen European education in schools by creating a multilingual platform and dedicated resources for secondary school teachers.All studies confirm that Europe often remains abstract and unknown to people and young people. Informing more and informing better appears to be a line of work that should be carried out in the school context. This is what Europe's ambitions have been for 20 years and what 90% of young Europeans are calling for. However, it should be noted that education about Europe does not exist or exists only to a limited extent in pupils' curricula.MEGA aims to respond to this by working around 3 objectives:- To identify, collect and organise a database of European educational resources on Europe to make what exists accessible in one place.- To create training modules on education for Europe for teachers who are often at a loss when it comes to European issues- To develop resources adapted to teachers in different subjects (cross-curricular approach) to provide them with quality tools and supports to help them in their work.MEGA is run by 6 partners, experts in the European subject and teaching from France, Germany, Croatia, Spain and Portugal.During 33 months, these organisations will work to build a coherent set of ressources dedicated to the teaching of Europe at school, adapted to the realities and contexts of their respective countries, but also to any other European country.The work programme includes- national white papers to identify the context of each country- a one-stop-shop platform for access to educational resources on Europe- e-learning modules for in-service teacher training- the creation of comprehensive (ready-to-use) resources and courses for teachers- promoting among their peers why and how to educate about Europe at school.Over the entire project, more than 300 secondary school teachers will be trained and equipped to educate about Europe and dozens of schools will lead lessons on Europe.MEGA will have a direct impact on teachers, on the teaching of Europe at school, on the European dimension in schools and will contribute to disseminating and raising awareness of education about Europe beyond the initial spheres of the project. The consortium is committed to this ambition and hopes that, through the project's outputs, a precise analysis of the impact on pupils and teachers, and a dissemination work targeting the education authorities in the partner countries, will help to support national guidelines and European initiatives in favour of a better knowledge of Europe and the development of a stronger European feeling.