"The project has fully achieved its main objective - to develop a Strategic Partnership and improve the exchange of information and improve cooperation between partners from Bulgaria and Greece, thus trying to find solutions or best practices together that help create more and better jobs for young people in the region of South East Europe, improve their employability and promote their motivation to build a better and more cohesive society.The major project activities was:B.1. Analytical phaseThe analytical team of the partners developed a Methodology for developing a study of employment opportunities for young people in Bulgaria and Greece.B.2. Data analysis and elaboration of common models and practices for elaboration of a Strategy for improvement of employment opportunities for young people in the region in Southeast Europe;B.3. Organized 4 international trainings for a 240 young people from Bulgaria and Greece.The project encouraged the exchange of information and improved cooperation between the partners from Bulgaria and Greece, thus finding solutions and best practices together that helped create more and better jobs for young people in the region of Southeast Europe, improving of employability and promoting their motivation to build a better and cohesive society.For this purpose, as proposed by the partners, a cross-sectoral approach is used to address the most specific issues related to increasing youth employment in the region, with the development of a new strategy outlining various actions presented and discussed at national and regional level.As such, it constitutes a part of the EU's coordinated response to the:•European Employment Strategy•Europe 2020 - A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, flagship initiatives to catalyse progress under 2 out of seven priority themes:""Youth on the move"" to enhance the performance of education systems and to facilitate the entry of young people to the labour market.•""Youth – Investing and Empowering"", the new EU strategy for youth policyThe project achieved all its initial goals. Through the project activities and its implementation, a sustainable partnership was achieved between the participants and the stakeholders. The analytical phase of the project was successfully completed, which provided a good basis for the implementation of other activities.All the achieved results and final products of the project have their long-term impact on the target group and the regional policies for dealing with the examined and studied problems."

"The project is based on the idea of young people (14-28 years old), some of whom are disadvantaged from Bulgaria (remote settlements in Kardzhali district) and Greece (small settlements in (Noma) district Thessaloniki), who participated in a meeting for identification of project ideas, held in Sofia in December, 2019. During this meeting, the youth reviewed the documents described above, taking into account the types of measures proposed and taking into account the increased risks of unemployment and falling into categories of ""NEETs"" in small settlements in their respective areas, drafted in the Concept for this project. In addition, young people recognized the need to create innovative and digitally based learning tools to meet the learning needs of disadvantaged young people (14-28 years) in the context of the highlights found in the considered strategic documents, which from one on the one hand, they promote the use of digitally based tools, and on the other, they recognize the need to develop digital and entrepreneurial competences.The project has the following general goal: Creation of innovative training methods for working with young people (14-28 years) and related digital innovative products, their application in training and their transfer to other sectors related to youth work in order to promote social inclusion. disadvantaged young people and overcoming the risks of falling into inactivity situations (""NEETs"").The Planned activities are:1. Developing ""Innovative Learning Methods for Working with Young People (14-28)"" based on an innovative juxtaposition between digital and entrepreneurial competences that address the needs of disadvantaged young people;2. Development of an Interactive map ""Digital Entrepreneurship Skills"", which is a digital-based training tool;3. Development of ""Educational platform with mobile application"" integrating Innovative learning methods for working with young people (14-28 years) and Interactive map ""Digital skills for entrepreneurship"", representing an integrated digital-based learning tool;4. Realization of training of young people (14-28 years) and development of entrepreneurial and digital skills in order to overcome the risks of falling into situations of inactivity (""NEETs"");5. Development of didactic and training skills of youth workers to apply innovative training methods for working with young people (14-28 years) and digital-based training tools;6. Transfer of good practices related to Innovative teaching methods for working with young people (14-28 years) and digital-based tools to representatives of other sectors related to youth work - school education; University education; institutions; NGOs working with young people, social services working with young people.Educational innovative intellectual products will be created that will lead to the realization of in-person and non-attendance training for young people (14-28 years old), some of whom are disadvantaged and developing an innovative combination of entrepreneurial and digital skills and competences. The project will add value to the targeted results - development and dissemination of training innovation, leading to the promotion of quality and innovative approach in youth work and the overall promotion of quality and innovation in youth work in both countries."

The aim of Alexander Project project –a collaboration of five organisations dealing with human rights, LGBTIQ+ issues (including migrants and refugees), youth and arts, is to develop new strategies and tools with which to open up the discussion on sexual diversity and inclusion. These new strategies are based on so-called ‘soft skill’ principles: the use of theatre, visual arts and storytelling as means with which to convey and transmit messages. All partners are to bring their respective expertise, varying from media and arts (Stichting art.1), advocacy/networking (Accept LGBT Cyprus), training (The Helsinki Committee FYROM, Drustvo Kulturno) and education (Omilos Thessalonikis) – to mention a few. The common denominator throughout the project is youth work, with all partners seeking to embed the project’s intellectual outputs in local, national and European youth work networks. Though the project uses soft skill methodologies such as storytelling, visual arts and theatre to specifically increase sexual diversity awareness, it also works within a broader concept of diversity which includes cultural and gender diversity. Most importantly, the use of scalable and accessible soft-skill methodologies increases the project's transferability and reach to countries and regions in which the LGBTIQ+ community faces higher rejection and danger given deeply entrenched homophobic tendencies. Notwithstanding, however, the project also benefits countries with higher tolerance rates such as The Netherlands, as it puts forth the exchange of best practices with organisations in far more adverse contexts, making room for innovative techniques to be used in other situations and projects. Following the successful completion of Young Queer Europe in 2015, we noted that one of the hardest challenges to overcome was the actual dissemination of intellectual outcomes, such as manuals and toolkits, in countries where diversity is less socially accepted. Building on this experience, the Alexander Project / Perform2Reform sought to establish a partnership which, through each local partners’ proven experience, became deeply familiarised with local collective mentality and possible mitigation strategies to difficulties encountered along the way. This project is innovative in many ways, but most notably by bringing together organisations with high experience in different areas within youth work, also focusing on a bottom-up artivists approach, changing the mentality of societies on (sexual) diversity not institutionally, but through working with groups, youth workers and soft-skill development such as storytelling and theater. The primary target group of this project is youth workers/coaches/ educators/social workers and arts workers who benefit from using the tools and methodologies developed within the framework of this project. It is expected to reach at least 350 youth workers/educators/social workers and arts workers in every participating country over the course of two years. These professionals will be provided with tools and knowledge to further develop their work with youth (secondary target group) on working with on LGBT+ and diversity issues. This project is also expected to reach at least 7500 young people, who will be able to contribute to a more equal society after being exposed to the methodologies within the project. After its completion, the project is expected to contribute to a change of mind towards LGBTIQ+ issues for at least 25.000 young people in the EU (plus 150.000 through our online channels). The impact of this project seeks to be strong on a local, national and European level. Locally, it seeks to raise the visibility of artistic engagement and soft skill learning models of best practices, providing access to high quality mobility experiences for LGBTIQ+ youth and raising local decision makers’ awareness of best practices in and youth, social and cultural sector providers. Nationally, it seeks to deliver innovative programs with which to develop creative tools used for sensitising on LGBTIQ+ and (sexual) diversity issues. On a European level, it seeks to support the case for creative cultural sector actions to address social issues and the development of similar programs in the future. Additionally, the project seeks to make a case for how continued cooperation between pan-European partners facing radically or mildly different contexts can provide real tangible impacts, tools and best practice models that with transferable, scalable applications with which to build a more inclusive and cohesive region.

"<< Objectives >>With the implementation of STEP project we aim at:providing social workers/educators with tools through which to promote active citizenship, social rights an social inclusion with adults living in marginalised contextssupporting adults to be engaged as active citizens in their local community, being aware of their social rights and opportunitiesimproving the activities of the partnership in the rural areas and in the urban outskirts, where adults suffer from social exclusion<< Implementation >>STEP project aims at:translating and adapting the Dignityland role-play to adult education settings in disadvantaged areascreating pills to support adults to get basic competences on IT to have access to services and opportunitiesorganising an international Training Course for social workers and educators to provide them with tools to work with adults in the above mentioned areasorganising local workshops for social workers and educators and accompany them to test the STEP tools with adults<< Results >>We expect to:improve the work of the social workers and educators, working in partners'organisations and beyond, in rural areas and in urban outskirts with adults suffering from social exclusionprovide new tools to social workers and educators, to remotivate themimprove the active participation of adults, living in rural ares and in urban outskirtsimprove the capacity of partners'organisations to stimulate community developement and local partnership to ""leave no one behind"""

The yearly award of European Youth Capital (EYC) provides title holders with an opportunity to not only present their existing initiatives targeted at youth but also an outstanding and utmost crucial platform to improve their programmes and policies for and by young people on various levels. Whilst locally addressing youth-related aspects, municipalities implement the frameworks of mutual European youth policy goals. Thus improving and strengthening a common European youth agenda as well as creating spaces and opportunities for youth participation and enhancing a sense of European, national and local citizenship. IIt is the goal of the project to facilitate the sharing and exchanging of best practices between Youth Capitals to ensure that whilst the title of European Youth Capital is duly transferred from city to city so are the lessons and knowledge associated with it. The basis considered is that, an awareness of the complementary nature of municipal, national and European levels amongst young people allows for a sustainable implementation and understanding of European policy dimensions. The project is specifically targeted at youth workers, leaders of youth NGOs, practitioners working on youth-related programmes within the municipalities as well as local authority representatives, all as the target group identified to be directly involved in the implementation of EYC related programmes as well as the youth agenda and activities of cities. The following objectives are intended to be met: - The exchange of best practices and lessons learned amongst past, present and future European Youth Capitals;- Identifying and analysing successful approaches and projects developed by past European Youth Capitals in order to understand the structures implemented to achieve this and therefore their applicability in other Youth Capitals;- Capacity building of practitioners within the partner cities to strengthen and ensure outstanding outputs and implementation of activities related to the awarded title of European Youth Capital;- Assessing the impact of and current link between activities locally carried out within the framework of the award and youth programmes at national and European level;- Developing a handbook including the outcomes of the knowledge transfer between the Youth Capitals, showcasing strategies and recommended successful practices that will support future title holding cities in the improvement of the quality of their youth programmes.During the project, a training course, a seminar, conference and the mapping of successful strategies and best practice activities will shape the outcome of a manual of best practices whilst building capacities of participants and partner organisations. These concrete outputs will serve as a support for the improvement of the quality of EYC youth activities and enable efficient achievement of positive and sustainable programmes. Also, municipalities interested in applying for the EYC award, through the documented outcomes of the project, have the opportunity to review methodologies that have proven successful and understand processes that have been optimised by past EYCs. Reducing the hurdle for municipalities to prepare themselves for an application and ensuring that the quality of outcomes continues to improve. The project will have an impact on over 5000 individuals and its outputs (e.g. manual of best practices) on even more. There will be an impact on the awareness amongst young people of the European dimension and its role and home on local level youth policies which will in turn lead to a society of young people aware of the meaning and outcomes of their European citizenship as well as their role at their local level.