"RED2.0 project (Recognition of non formal education, Empowerment of Young people and Development of outreach Youth Work) was a 24 months project coordinated by YUPI organization in Portugal, in close partnership with Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Cape Verde, Uruguay, Peru, Chile and São Tome for a total number of 500 young people and more then 50 youth workers and indirectly reaching more than 1200 more young people in the 10 countries involved from South America, Africa and Europe. RED2.0 contributed to the recognition of non formal education as a tool for the development of local and national systems of alternative education to outreach young people (the kelluween platform and contents created for Volunteer management during the EVS activities is a great example of that) and the creation of life projects for the youngsters involved. This target group was composed by young people that are ""hard to reach"" through education systems (drop-out) and job/occupation because of low level of academic studies, low motivation to engage in meaningful occupation, undefined life projects and families/context that don't facilitate other learning opportunities.Our main goal to empower and capacitate these organizations to work in this sector was definitely acgieved, creating an international network of partners interested and implementing a system of training for youth workers that reflects the needs of outreach youth work and also adapted and replied in all partners to develop this field of youth work, through a training kit on the topic and a referential training that was created through this project. The activities plan was composed by a coordinators meeting in Portugal, mobility of 11 youth workers, involvement of the target group in 10 EVS experiences, an intensive training course for professional development and collective creation of a system of training, a pilot phase for implementing/testing the training referential in two different realities (Uruguay and Cape Verde), implementation of ideas from EVS volunteers supported by youth workers, a final conference to disseminate and involve more youngsters to understand the potential of EVS and youth work for their personal development, and 2 evaluation meetings, in parallel with the online platform created to accompany the EVS experience and training materials and referential kit compilation. The project contributed to the practice of the guidelines of the Youth guarantee policies regarding the outreach young people and developed practical tools to support youth workers and outreach youth work to be acquainted with competences to allow the development of this sector, with the aim at allowing young people in this target group to build their own life projects and engage in active participation, meaningful occupation and contribution to the community."

Migration to and inside EU is salient now, which means integration in today’s Europe is of high importance. The public sphere in Europe is facing alarming signals of intolerance growing. The three partner organisations in Richness in Diversity already have ongoing work to empower young immigrants with diverse backgrounds, and this project aims at developing their skills in diversity management by sharing best practices as well as including the experiences and work of 12 young participants with immigrant background. Their participation will add an extra dimension to the capacity building of the partner organisations as well as creating an arena for the participants to express their view of today’s Europe and to get tools and experience to take ownership over and addressing the obstacles they face in European society. The project Richness in Diversity will include three transnational meetings and an ongoing online dialogue between the partner organisations to share their best practices on diversity management, and to develop a small E-Booklet to disseminate to other organisations in the field. The project also includes three mobility programs including teaching/learning/training activities for 12 young participants with diverse backgrounds. The participants will benefit from exchanging ideas with young people in similar situations. Comparing the Danish, Swedish and Portuguese contexts will make space for more creative and critical thinking in regards to the designs of the campaign projects that all youth participants will carry out, so that those youth can become drivers of change for better and creative integration. The activities will include interactive participatory approach using non-formal education tools. The project is based on a critical reflection of the topics Diversity and Integration. The methodology which will be applied is participatory based on the idea that all groups need a platform to air their views and the issues they are facing as a group to be able to feel as a part of society and of democracy. In order to foster democracy, all groups in society need to both feel involved and that they have a level of ownership over their society. The impact on the partner organizations will be a deeper understanding of their target group(s), higher capacity in reaching and communicating with their target groups(s), and access to more knowledge and experiences through the E-booklet. The participants will get tools manage a project, will be able to critically analyse their situation as well as managing solutions and spreading their image of being a young immigrant in Europe. To connect youth across national boundaries through seminars and project work also creates a sense of ownership and recognition of similar backgrounds and the issues they are facing, as well as the opportunity to discuss solutions with others in a similar situation. Above this, the participants also get to spread their stories and solutions to other youths with immigrant background, whom can recognize themselves in the stories that are told.

Using both national- and European-level instruments, EU countries enjoy a reasonably well-developed legal and financial framework for supporting volunteering, where numerous entities possess substantial expertise and are able to organise and manage voluntary activities. In the light of recent re-emergence of xenophobic tendencies in Europe, we believe the same process should be initiated and developed with regard to Europe-Asia relations. As more and more European citizens fear the “clash of civilizations” and the influx of migrants from countries with predominantly Muslim populations, we need to provide young people from Europe and Asia with opportunities to co-exist outside the stereotypical context of “isolated migrant diasporas vs. local communities”. Volunteering and youth projects constitute an excellent chance to do so. We believe the challenge of “building bridges” through youth work calls for systematic, long-term cooperation among European and Asian organisations. This, in turn, requires effort in order for partners to generate necessary potential and expertise. The overall aim of the project is to create conditions and develop potential that will allow European and Asian partners collaborate more effectively and on a regular basis in the field of youth work. This calls for framing specific standards of cooperation and methods for ensuring quality in the implementation of youth projects and volunteering activities envisioned in initiatives undertaken by European and Asian entities. First of all, the project is designed to pool the expertise and experiences of all involved partners. Another goal of the project is to provide a chance for exchanging practices and experiences with regard to management, risk handling and communication in Europe-Asia youth projects. All partners wish to enhance their organisational potential for cooperation by developing a set of methods, tools, solutions and practices that will set a common standard of high-quality operations in the organisation of youth activities and volunteering, taking account of relevant cultural and social differences. In order to share experience, skills and tools and to create the final product of the project (guidelines of the project management with the toolkit for international youth workers) we will use the following methods: transfer of methodologies and instruments, teamwork and cooperative learning. All in all, the experience and outcomes of this project will serve as an impulse and basis for a sustained Europe-Asia collaboration model, where quality is assured through commonly developed methods and tools that allow for a better understanding of the impact of social and cultural differences.

Go Green project is a 24 months project coordinated by YUPI organization in Portugal, in close partnership with Romania, Thailand and Vietnam for a total number of 200 young people and youth workers in the 4 countries involved from Europe and Asia. We want to raise capacity of our organizations to support young people who have activities or starting business which are environmentally and community friendly and re-use resources in the scope of circular economy. We want to strengthen the support in youth work through the development of methodologies and procedures of each organization to better integrate and accompany young people who want to start any activity (volunteering or business) in the environmental sector, by raising their employability and entrepreneur skills aligned with an ecological perspective and in a sustainable way.Our main goal is to create an international network of partners interested in creating a system of training of youth workers that reflects the needs of the involved organizations based on non formal education methodology development, through a training referential on the topic that will be disseminated to external partners. This international network aims at raising the capacity of our organizations and others working in the social sector to be more effective and supportive to their youngsters that are in need of integration in the labor market but have many limitations and concerns due to the environmental degradation of nowadays and their lack of knowledge on how to build an environmental and social fair business.Go Green! is supported by previous experiences of partner organizations, built on past capacity building experiences, and foster more quality, diversity and deeper impact on the capacity of the organizations and social impact in the community.

Curiously, even though mankind enjoys an unprecedented access to information these days, finding the truth seems trickier than ever. In 2018, 10% out of the 400 thousand Polish children eligible for compulsory vaccinations were not immunized because their parents deemed the procedure harmful (Medonet.pl, “Efekt działania” A. Rojek-Kiełbasa, 13.02.2019). In the USA, one in six people doubt that the Earth is spherical and prefer the disc theory instead (YouGov, a 2018 survey on a sample group of 8000). The pre-referendum debate over Brexit and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign were filled with statements of, let’s say, questionable credibility and fraught will allegations of external influences. A closer look at the history of Cambridge Analytica – a company behind some of these scandals – suggests that similar tools could have been used to affect the outcome of “over 100 election campaigns in 32 countries on 5 continents” (forsal.pl, “Firma-matka Cambridge Analytica…”, 29.03.2018). Democratic societies are vulnerable to manipulation, for instance through voter profiling in social media or the spreading of conspiracy theories. Given the multiplicity of opinions, the lack of mechanisms for instant verification of information and the absence of long-standing, commonly accepted authority on a given subject, this has become a major problem. Brussels is well aware of it and has been ringing the alarm bell in recent years. Last year there were multiple reports urging European countries to protect themselves against Russian influences (www.theguardian.com, “Now is the time”, D. Boffey, 16.05.2019). At this very time, the European Parliament is trying to curb the spread of fake news on the coronavirus. This is the world that young people face upon entering adolescence. Unfortunately, schools are unprepared to help them navigate the maze of fake news, disinformation and manipulation of data. In Poland, there is no school curriculum that includes and combines competences needed to recognize the truth, verify data and assess its credibility. Young people lack the knowledge which is absolutely essential for them to make informed decisions about the future – their own and that of their families, countries or the EU as a whole. The Internet - particularly social media - tends to be their primary source of knowledge which makes it necessary for them to rely on somebody else’s selection of data and knowledge (and often opinions). The need to equip young people with tools to navigate the world of media, with all their diversity, complexity and importance for understanding the world around us, is urgent and dire. However, any action that is to be taken should be based on sound knowledge. So far, we have been unable to find proper, comprehensive research that identifies the scale of manipulation that the youth is exposed to or provides guidelines for policies to tackle fake news, disinformation etc. This is why we have made an examination of the issue our first priority.Under the proposed project, we are going to draft a report that will shed some light on how and to what extent young people’s view of the world is shaped by incorrect information or lack of awareness. We wish to find out how well the youth understands the world and whether it is equipped in competences it needs to gain such understanding. We will look at how different countries approach educating youngsters on how to use information. We will examine how effective are fact-checking organisations in addressing young people as a target group. Crucially, we need to find out whether (and if so, to what extent) the youth is aware of the problem itself. What kinds of manipulation can it recognise? Discussions on which topic are particularly fraught with fake news or distorted data? We will ask young people about their preferred ways of verifying information and learning how to detect disinformation. Finally, we will check whether educators and youth workers are prepared to guide the learners in an effort to find and correctly interpret credible data.The research will allow us to identify the key areas for future action: aspects and threats that need to be addressed, possible solutions. The report, containing statistics, conclusions and guidelines, including ideas for activities to be used by youth workers and educators. The publication will be disseminated among stakeholders in the youth sector. Partner organisations will have a chance to develop a series of further undertakings in this area. he ultimate goal is to contribute to the construction of a more educated, aware society, capable of exercising its liberties and making wise use of the democratic framework. The project is meant to instigate a debate over how to fill a competence gap which is quickly becoming a substantial threat to the fundamental tenets of democracy itself.Let’s begin with the most logical step - by gaining a better understanding of the issue.