"The project “MADE in EU”, which was prepared by five NGOs from four EU countries (Lithuania, Italy, Poland, Greece) aimed to contribute to the goals of the ""Europe 2020"", promoting inclusive growth and cohesive society, through the exchange of best practices, experiences, methodologies and strategies in adult education in order to propose necessary skills and constant knowledge updates for vulnerable groups. The duration for the project was 2 years. The result of rapid change in XXI century is that some particularly vulnerable or disadvantaged groups (long-term unemployed, immigrants, minorities, adults drop out from the labor market, unskilled, digital illiterates, people with psychological distress, etc) are excluded from the market. Many studies conducted at European level show that it is necessary to increase the number of adults involved in lifelong learning, in order to reduce unemployment, social exclusion, lack of confidence in themselves and in the institutions. In order to increase the number of adults involved in lifelong learning, as well as the quality of the training provided, the partners of “MADE in EU” project aimed to deepen and experience in their local contexts, methods and approaches, able to create interconnection between formal, non-formal and informal learning and share best practices, concerning adult education. The partners worked locally to identify small ""vulnerable"" groups of adults excluded or de-motivated to take part in lifelong learning (target groups). Training needs of target groups were identified in terms of key and soft skills: communication skills, digital competence; learning to learn, social and civic competences, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, cultural awareness and expression. Obstacles and reasons for which the target groups are excluded or not motivated to take part in lifelong learning were analyzed; best practices and innovative methods in the field of adult education were exchanged and studied (in particular peer to peer approaches; learning by doing and the andragogical model), also presented shortly in the project website, Facebook page, Booklet and the APP that can be downloaded and publicly used by education community."

CONTEXTThe project is built to support, address diversity and promote, through best practices, the social inclusion of persons at risk of social exclusion such as migrants, refugees, health-related conditions, low-skilled and low-qualified, female and gender-related discrimination. The educators active in adult learning are continuously looking for more effective forms and methodologies to be used to foster social inclusion. The partners, at the application stage, have detected the needs and it came out that it is necessary to learn from practices, to discover from real cases rather than study, on a desk, new methodologies and experimental approaches. There is also an evident lack of effective and structured ways to obtain life skills within adults: the skills that are not exclusively related to the job but that are essential to be more integrated e.g. volunteering activities, environmental education, intercultural awareness.The partners, active in different fields of adult education, want to discover how is possible to foster social inclusion with art, social entrepreneurship, volunteering and intercultural dialogue.OBJECTIVEThanks to the possibility to investigate, discover and exploit the success of best practices already successful in Europe, the staff is able to learn about methodologies and approaches effective for adult learners.A better Europe is possible only by fostering the social inclusion with art, social entrepreneurship, volunteering and intercultural dialogue.The partnership will develop some relevant outcomes, such as the collection about successful practices in terms of social inclusion, different training modules with a description of some methodologies for social inclusion. Main results are going to be translated and made available as Open Educational Resources in 8 different languages (English + all partners' National languages).PARTICIPANTS Educators from partner countries are going to participate in intensive transnational project meetings, including training activities and the visits to stakeholders.RESULTS- GOOD PRACTICE examples (GP) about successful social inclusion coming from all over Europe - a selection of the Best Practices (BP) will be collected in a Handbook in English after an intensive evaluation process;- TRAINING MODULES with a description of some successful and effective methodologies for social inclusion - available in all partners’ national languages as a dynamic PDF document (interactive document with buttons, movies and sounds, hyperlinks, bookmarks, and page transitions);- OER documents in digital format as PDF (ref. ISSUU platform): a series of digital publications (Open Educational Resources) such as Best Practice Handbook and Training Modules (available in all partners’ national languages);- FACEBOOK PROJECT PAGE: used as a dissemination tool for information about the main project activities, outcomes and results;- WEB PLATFORM: the project website will collect all the materials produced by the partnership and will detail all the activities carried out by the partners;- NEWSLETTERS: No. 2 Newsletters used to detail and show the project impact and activities such as photos, interviews of staff and relevant stakeholders;- LEAFLETS: to give information in a glance about the project - in printable format and PDF in 8 languages (English and all partners’ languages).TARGET GROUPEducators to improve their skills and learn about effective methodologies and approaches for people at risk of social exclusion:- Migrants and refugees- Adults with health-related conditions (e.g. mental health disease, HIV)- Low-skilled and low-qualified - Female and gender-related discriminationMETHODOLOGIES AND APPROACHES to be used during the project lifetime are various and based on different training activities.The workshop/training are about the following topics :- Art for social inclusion- Social Entrepreneurship- Female Entrepreneurship- Volunteering for Environmental Purposes- Volunteering for Social and Civic Purposes- Migrant Inclusion- Storytelling for Social InclusionThe transfer of knowledge is going to be reinforced by some visits to relevant stakeholders selected in accordance with the topic of the training carried out during the second day of each Transnational Project Meeting.