<< Background >>The project, CRESTART - CReative rESilienT leARning communiTies meeting COVID challenges, involves partner countries from Bulgaria, Hungary, Netherlands and Cyprus.Context: COVID situation brought unexpected and new challenges for local communities in almost every field of their lives. We selected local cultural activities as subject of our project: because of lockdown and keeping distance policy cultural activities needed to be rethought. Our project focuses on these changes and all the novelties it brought in local communities, which will definitely shape the cultural life after the pandemic as well. We will collect and share the best practices we find.The aim of the project is to map the cultural changes before and after COVID that have developed and will develop in certain dimensions of the institutional and national culture of the participating countries.Furthermore we aim to develop and share a complex, participatory and user-friendly toolkit for strengthening the creativity and innovativeness of local societies on how to successfully tackle similar challenges and reduce cultural risks. We plan to involve different types of local communities: big cities (Nicosia, Rotterdam), a town in the metropolitan area (Érd) and a medium size town (Lovech).Objectives- Understanding and mapping the old cohesive traditions of the local societies and their chances to survive in the 21st century.- Mapping the impact of the COVID pandemic on the culture of local societies in the participating countries and pilot settlements.- Mapping the community resources in the pilot settlements, with special regard to the creative capacity among the target groups.- Cultural consumption and culture shaping best practice collection in the participating countries, with particular reference to geopolitical and cultural differences in the Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria and Cyprus.- Searching for opportunities to involve locals by target group (young people, the elderly, working-age adults) in order to achieve the main goal.- Assessing the possibilities of offline and online activities and developing new solutions by target group in the pilot settlements.- Capacity building of local residents to become active culture shaping stakeholders and community organizers locally.- International exchange of creative solutions, adaptation of new creative methods in local level. Our direct target group consist of1000 (250/country) persons in total who will participate in the (online-offline) mapping during PR1 research work.120 adult learners in total (30 professionals and active residents / country) who will take part in multiplier events and want to take an active part in shaping the community and cultural life of the municipality.120 adult learners in total (30 participants / country) who complete the e-learning curricula (PR3) and learn new methods, tools and attitudes60 adult learners in total (15 participants / country) who will participate in the training workshops during the multiplier events and dealing with cultural and community events in the municipality. Our indirect target group consist of: · people who will benefit from the changes taking place in their towns;· toolbox users;· reached audience through dissemination activities.<< Objectives >>We want to equip local community organisers and stakeholders with the knowledge and toolkit to organise local communities’ events, activities in challenging times: that will have an effect on the mental health of the community, also will contribute to the community cohesion. Our project focuses on community organisers from the field of culture, but knowledge can be used in other fields as well.<< Implementation >>We will carry out online and offline research in the 4 participating countries to map the local communities: traditions and impact of COVID-19 on local communities (related project result PR1). Our plan is to develop an online platform: design and implementation - training materials, elearning, creativity toolbox, etc. (related project result PR2). Connected to the eLearning platform, we also plan to develop eLearning and contact training curricula by target group (related project result PR3). A collection of good practices will be carried out and also sharing experience between participating countries (related project result PR4). At the end of the project we prepare a Social Impact Report (related project result PR5). Capacity building among local stakeholders is crucial, to support it we will organise training workshops, multiplier events in all participating countries, etc. To provide smooth implementation of professional activities we are organizing five Transnational Partner Meetings (TPM1-TPM5), and short online meetings, if needed.<< Results >>We are planning to design and develop five project results, these are the tangible results of our project: PR1 Online and offline research report on the local communities and cultural life before, during and after COVID-19 pandemic;PR2 eLearning platform for active citizens;PR3 Curricula on public involvement for community organizers;PR4 Creativity development toolbox;PR5 Social Impact Report;We also expect that as a result of our project, local communities involved will be more prepared for unexpected events and will have a wide range of tools to use during “normal” and “extraordinary” times. Involvement of local residents in community (cultural) activities will increase. We hope that the involvement of local residents will result in a better psychological state (in general) of the residents involved in “extraordinary” times. Community cohesion will raise.

Prison art work is a type of work that requires different rules and possibilities in terms of establishing contact, freedom of movement, opening certain topics and thinking carefully on its ethical dimensions, as well as keeping in mind the professional obligation to keep information, that artists might receive or the insights they gain while working in prison space, confidential. Before they could start any artwork in prison space, artists involved in the project need to go through proper education. Through certain forms of education, artists need to understand that working in a prison space requires not only a different approach to work than the one they are used to, but also a different approach to the people they will encounter while working in that space. The reasons for this belief are found in the experiences of previous projects. Lack of familiarity with the way of working and behaving often causes the artist to be obstinate. That behavior then results in superficiality and inappropriate work. Resistance to learn something or apply something that they have been suggested has led us to think about the need to carry out a project where artists would undergo certain forms of education before working in prison.Continuing on all the facts, the idea has been developed to produce and publish two educational books (manuals) explaining and displaying different aspects of art work in the prison.Projects to promote education in prisons, through the search for professional associates, the exchange of knowledge and the dissemination of good practice, have been implemented in the European area for a long time. The reason for the transnational implementation of the project is the fact that both the applicant and the project partners will use the specific knowledge and expertise that each participant brings to the project.By educating the prison system's expert staff about this domain of artistic activity, which actually falls into the scientific field of medicine and we can say psychology, we are placing it in the area of one of the important lifelong literacy processes. This type of education is important because in this way the form of acting through the arts is more successfully embedded, on an equal footing with other skills (using art therapies and working with prisoners) in the penal / prison community. For artists, the effect we expect is to increase understanding of the needs of the community in which they perform the artistic interventions and to respond better to the needs of that community. The long-term effect is to increase artist interest in participating in projects related to prison systems.Following the implementation of the project at the partnership level, the results of the project will be used to: educate artists interested in the subject of painting and aesthetization of prison premises, educate employees in prison systems on the effects of art on behaviour and stay in prison, and educate students during their studies.All materials produced by the project will be fully available to the public as follows: the books will be uploaded to the ISSU database, where the HDLU places links to catalogs, which are then made available to the public for reading and download.We plan to update the books over time, in line with the progress of projects in prison systems and the experiences we will gain over time, and we also intend to supplement the books so that they can be applied to hospital facilities.The long-term plan is to create a catalog of interventions performed so far in short-text brochures, which can then be placed in hospital waiting rooms, so that patients can gain insight into the purpose of artistic initiatives.Brochures will also be developed for prison interventions and made available to prison systems to provide prisoners with insight and information on intervention projects and results.

The covid emergency that hit the world at the beginning of 2020 has imposed radical changes in our society. Most aspects of everyday life have undergone changes caused by this emergency: from the emotional to the working sphere, there has been no area that has not to deal with restrictions, changes and new organizational structures.The area of training, of course, was one of the most affected, forced to respond quickly to a situation in which part of the skills and tools have proved obsolete. Of course having to face this crisis represented an opportunity to accelerate modernization processes, but it is undeniable that this situation has also exacerbated social inequalities and the difficulties of particular contexts of society: among these, certainly the prison context is the one that has suffered the greatest backlash.In the penitentiary system, access to training is of enormous importance both for the quality of life during their stay in institutions and for the possibilities that people can access once their sentence is over. As explained in the summary report created for the European Commission by GHK, a high percentage of prisoners in the EU have a rather low level of preparation and training and these low qualification levels have important negative effects on the job prospects of prisoners close to release, a condition identified as one of the key factors for relapse.Access to adequate and quality training was a central challenge for the penitentiary system in the pre-Covid era, with the explosion of the health emergency and its repercussions these issues have become of vital importance. In fact, issues have emerged that can no longer be postponed: access to the internet and digital education, the preparation of prison staff, the basic digital skills of trainers and learners, are aspects on which to focus our efforts, being essential tools to guarantee the right to training and therefore to an effective rehabilitation process.The STEP - Supporting distance Training and Education in Prison - project aims to support and enhance the use of digital tools and distance learning in prisons. To succeed in this aim, we believe it is necessary to support educators and prison staff in the acquisition of adequate skills for the implementation of these tools.A fundamental first step to succeed is to adopt a common methodology through the collection of European good practices in distance learning in prison and comparing the response that different contexts have given and are giving to training needs. With the STEP project we will therefore build a comparative research between at least 4 European countries, proposing short vocational paths hops in each penitentiary institution and monitoring the organizational and management methods of these paths in vivo. This research will lay the foundations for an analysis of the Strengths and Weaknesses of each intervention with the aim of building guidelines for the enhancement of distance learning in prison and ad hoc training courses for prison staff and for the civilian personnel working in institutions. The Step project will be divided into 2 years and 2 phases:Phase I: Inmate training and comparative research●Analysis of the training courses in prison in the partner countries●Distance learning course for prisoners in each partner country●Construction of a grid of observation and comparison of the paths: analysis of virtuous organizational processes and of the criticalities encountered●Collection of good practicesPhase II Guidelines and training●Guidelines for the enhancement of distance learning in prison●Training for prison staff and civilian staff working in institutions

Context/background of the project:The European PAC project (Prisoners’ Active Citizenship) contributes to an important priority of the Erasmus Plus programme. It promotes social inclusion as it aims to increase participation and lifelong learning among one of the most disadvantaged groups of society: prisoners. The project also increased empowerment among this population. Concretely, the PAC project realized new knowledge and innovative pathways in prisoners’ participation and involvement in prison life to improve their social inclusion and empowerment. This project is produced against the background of legal and human rights prisoners have to participate in different prison activities (e.g., in education, sport activities, cultural activities), and being actively involved in the organisation of prison life (e.g., democratic participation, involvement in the organisation of prison activities). Throughout Europe, more than 1 400 000 people are imprisoned. The prison population is diverse in terms of nationality, ethnicity, languages mastered, age, etc. Although prisoners’ participation and involvement in prison life has been related with diverse positive outcomes such as improvement of skills, self-esteem, self-confidence, and better relationships between prisoners and prison staff, it has been found that there is a lack of knowledge about how to develop, implement and support different types of prisoners’ participation and involvement in prison life, in particular for diverse groups of prisoners (including prisoners awaiting trial, foreign speaking prisoners, illiterate prisoners, etc.). objectives, type/profile of participants; description of undertaken activities;To anticipate this gap, the PAC consortium did undertake several steps. First, the partnership developed a state of play in which they indicate good/ learning practices across Europe in which prisoners are seen as active citizens. This state of play is based on a review of the literature and the results of an online survey. Second, the PAC consortium developed, tested and implemented innovative learning practices to increase prisoners’ participation and involvement in prison life in 5 European countries (i.e., Belgium, Croatia, Italy, The Netherlands, and United Kingdom), based on this state of play. Using process and product evaluations, these innovative learning areas has been scientifically investigated in order to develop a toolkit for professionals to realize new European learning areas. In this toolbox, practical tips and tricks for local and regional institutions for realizing learning areas are given. Finally, another important part of the PAC project is the strategic influence on local, regional, national and European policy makers in order to facilitate future learning areas in order to increase the participation possibilities and chances of prisoners. Each country organised a local multiplier event in order to ensure sustainable use of the toolkit and future development of innovative learning areas in which prisoners’ participation and involvement are central. Besides, also a European study day has been organised to spread the results of the project.

"All European countries are involved in a massive arrival of migrants, and many of them are asylum seekers, victims of trafficking in human beings. Several attempts have been made in the last few years to implement reception policies, by each Member State and at the European level. However, all policies were based on a more material approach rather than social, psychological and welfare-related, focusing more on the legal condition of a person rather than on the social condition, which, indeed, is key to devising good reception and integration policies, both for the sake of incomers and local communities. In every migration, incomers carry along a psycho-emotional burden of violence and physical, sexual, psychological abuse, which needs to be dealt with, not just deciding about a person's life and condition by granting (or not) a permit to stay. It is sadly known that migrants, especially those who come from Sub-Saharan Africa, were very often tortured during their journeys. It is also well known that the towns and cities where migrants are accommodated lack suitable tools for social integration, so social conflicts, fears and fake news become increasingly common. The SIMPLE project has as its main objective the (re)conquest of the individual autonomy of the applicants for international and humanitarian protection, as their actual emancipation from the need to receive assistance; in these terms we speak of ""emancipating acceptance"". It therefore becomes essential to place the people in the center of the Protection System, who should not be mere passive beneficiaries of interventions prepared in their favor, but active protagonists of their own path of reception and social inclusion. In the SIMPLE project the concept of empowerment acquires a significant meaning, as an individual and organized process, through which individuals can reconstruct their ability to choose and design and regain the perception of their own value, their potential and opportunities.The SIMPLE project is focused on the psychological wellbeing and the social integration of migrants traumatized by the travel and the human trafficking, with specific attention for women. Activities planned in SIMPLE respond to the Community guidelines defined by the EU Directives on minimum standards in the welcoming of Asylum Seekers. This Directive recommends to EU countries the protection of the victims of tortures, rapes and other severe forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence. Five Intellectual Outputs proposed by the partnership will lead to the development of an innovative Model of Approach based on visual narrative methodology, accompanied by the guide for operators (consisting of materials and tools) and learning pathways to the socio-economic integration of migrant women that aim to maximize the level of integration in the country where their migration route took them. The project will directly influence operators who will gain a new knowledge (joint-training) and migrant women who will participate in piloting sessions testing the new methodology. Organisation of 6 Multiplier Events will help to communicate and disseminate project results and increase its visibility on the local and national level. The IO5 Guide for the Sustainability will be developed with the aim to provide the methodology and lesson learnt to the public and to share its results with all public service providers collaborating in the reception process of migrants and asylum seekers in order to provide psycho-social and health support. Hence, it will be possible to ensure that the project is sustainable in the long term and can be replicated on a larger scale, thus generating a long-term impact for a larger number of beneficiaries. Furthermore, all project partners, in particular their employees and collaborators, will receive specific training and mentoring aimed to develop the skills needed for the project. By doing this, the project actions may be replicated independently in the future, achieving just as many effective results as the original project increasing the sustainability of the SIMPLE project. The project will have a long-term impact, as it will help migrants and their new reference communities create a common future with no social conflicts and no risk of xenophobic behaviours, which have actually become quite strong and frequent in Europe in the last few months, with consequent threats to social cohesion and integration. Such an integration project might not be applicable to each and every migrant. However, data show that where such a project could be implemented, the level of social integration was considerably enhanced.Main results: 1. Ensure the protection of migrants who were victims of trafficking in human beings, exploitation, traumatic experiences, abuse and violence. 2. Enhance job opportunities for migrants; encourage integration at work and, more in general, into the society."