Many social challenges that we are facing, such as climate change, inequality or poverty, have been further developed in a short space of time by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many dark narratives are being created, with environmental, social and economical crisis in the first line. But, uncertainties should not frighten or paralyze us; they should help us anticipate and prepare.In the project “Imaginarium,” partners for Luxembourg (Art square Lab), France (Co-Actions), Ireland (M-Powered) and Finland (University of Turku) are going to introduce creativity using Design Thinking and Futures Thinking methodology that will enable a proactive search for possible development solutions for tomorrow.Young people will be ensured that designing the future is, on the one hand, a search for opportunities and potential, and on the other hand, systematic, purposeful and initiating practical solutions, aimed at responding to uncertainty. On the other hand, youth workers will be supported with the research, materials and tools to introduce Futures Thinking and Design Thinking as regular creative ways of thinking for young people, adapted to the new realities. PROJECT OUTPUTS/ACTIVITIES•EVIDENCE-GATHERING REPORT on CHALLENGES FOR FUTURES (Country Reports on challenges young people face in connection to sustainability, based on the research. Qualitative report. What young people think about the future? What do they see as the main challenges now?)•CREATIVITY ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR YOUTH WORK (Creativity Assessment Tool developed with support of the researchers from University of Luxembourg)•Tool-kit FOR CREATIVITY (Toolkit for creativity and Design Thinking for innovative education, with materials like cards and canvas and board game useful for youth workers - materials will be implemented and tested during the project) •GUIDE for FUTURES THINKING for YOUTH WORK (Publication: Futures Thinking in Youth Work - guide for youth workers)•WEB PLATFORM: Website, Blog, Facebook page – a database of materials (Digital platform with examples of “Sustainable futures project” created by young people during Thinkacton)•EVENT THINKACTON (1 per country) for 30-40 young people per country •A series of MULTIPLIER EVENTS (6 in total, implemented in all partner countries)•JOINT STAFF TRAINING EVENT (2 JSTE) for staff and associated youth workers, allowing them to build further their creative competences•LEAFLET promoting the project•YOUTUBE CHANNEL capturing the most important impressions from the projectThe partnership desired impact is to be considered a referral point for further activities in the field of education for creativity (using Futures Thinking and Design Thinking) thanks to innovative methodologies, tools and approaches used and produced during the Imaginarium Project. •Bring the creativity in non-formal educational system thanks to the Design Thinking and Futures Thinking and creative problem-solving methodologies•Supporting students and educators in developing new sustainable ideas for positive futures•Support educators with materials useful for teaching creativity and sustainability •Support educators with a tool to measure creativity of young people •Professional development of staff and stakeholders: intensive training about the use of creativity in education of young people•Encourage young people to implement their ideas: inform them about the funding possibilities for Solidarity Projects (Erasmus Plus EU Program) and provide them with basic project•management skills fostering social entrepreneurship and employment .The project will be directly addressed to the staff of partner organisations (6-8 persons), youth workers invited to take part in the project (16-20 persons) and80-120 young people. Indirectly, thanks to the diverse expertise of the partners, their geographical distribution and wide networks, the project will address non-formal education sector on national and European levels.

NEEDS ANALYSISEffective education and training are the foundations to support growth and employment. The nature of jobs is also invariably changing towards the use of digital technology, requiring for people’ skills and aptitudes to be entrepreneurial, manage complex information, think autonomously and creatively, use resources, including digital ones, smartly, communicate effectively and be resilient.Higher Education system in Europe is facing those challenges. The skilled force of Europe does not necessarily meet the skills Europe needs. There is a certain mismatch as many graduates lack good basic skills and highly skilled positions are facing a shortage. The innovation gap between higher education institutions and their community is growing. Cooperation with schools, vocational providers and adult learning often remains limited.REASON FOR THE PROPOSALThe elements the proposal is based on are:- Develop, test, adapt and implement innovative practices, creative and disruptive approaches and methodologies in the educational system thanks to alternative and successful methodologies and approaches such as Creative Problem Solving, Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design, in order to create a novel system aimed at entrepreneurship-oriented learning: the partners are aware of the lack of an effective system to transfer knowledge and provide learners of skills necessary for self-employment as start-upper or employment- The strong design of products, services and value are essential to successful enterprisesThe PROJECT PROPOSAL is about:- the building up of a MOOC platform integrated with strong elements of gamification of learning in a free online course to anyone is interested to discover interesting emerging opportunities from a creative and design thinking approach;- provide some GUIDES about effective methodologies;- produce some REPORTS about the real needs in terms of innovation in the market and successful cases in European entrepreneurship.OUTPUTS/RESULTSThe project aims to:• Explore and discover from across EU successful GOOD PRACTICE examples about innovation in enterprises coming from Creative and Designed Thinking implementation in Europe;• Produce an EVIDENCE-GATHERING report starting from the emerging needs analysis done by a FOCUS GROUPS via INTERVIEWS (stakeholders from SME, University, students, VET sector) and aimed to the emersion of the needs in terms of education and learning for students, teachers, wanna-be startuppers, VET providers, entrepreneurs (including SME) looking for opportunities for growth;• Promote the development, testing and implementation of INNOVATIVE PRACTICES/METHODOLOGIES thanks to SEVERAL GUIDES and a MOOC platform focused on: Creative Problem Solving, Design Thinking, Human-Centered Design and on sectorial modules about interesting entrepreneurship opportunities e.g. European Cultural Heritage, Social Entrepreneurship, Glocal development and FabLab • Stimulate a change in the Educational System coming from innovative and disruptive METHODOLOGIES and APPROACHES • Transfer the knowledge about the METHODOLOGIES through a series of GUIDES (in digital format and published on ISSUU platform)• Explore the challenge and opportunities from successful European enterprises thanks to a CASES ANALYSIS REPORT• Create a WEBSITE integrated with Wiki, Blog and Social Networks containing a DATABASE OF MATERIALS TRANSLATED into all partners’ National languages to promote and encourage extensive exploitation and dissemination• Disseminate the project outputs and results throughout the EU with a database of OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES available through open licences• Arrange a series of MULTIPLIER EVENTS involving a large number of stakeholders to foster exploitation and dissemination of PROJECT Intellectual Outputs.• Create a professional profile for project partners’ staff as “European Expert in CREATIVE AND DESIGN THINKING”.IMPACT ENVISAGEDThe partnership will bring together partners coming from several countries and their stakeholders, both academic and private, with the synergic power to reach a very large and diverse audience.The double-route to follow in the project is:- Transfer innovative and disruptive methodologies/approaches to:• Actual Students: to enrich and update the knowledge with interesting topics complementary to their own study pathway • Future Students: to attract students to the HE system by providing for free innovative methodologies in a gamified environment• Former Students: to update the knowledge with fresh perspectives coming from live cases but also to discover how to use new methodologies to create successful enterprises•Start-uppers, business sector, accelerators and incubators and all SME: interested in new perspectives and approaches useful to survive and adapt the enterprises.- Recognise and validate the knowledge within partner staff to create a new profile of “European Expert in CREATIVE AND DESIGN THINKING”.

ContextYouth unemployment is an Europe’s unshakeable challenge and volunteer activities are not only a way to serve the local community, but can also be a successful strategy as part of youth employability. Local development can be a direct response to a high, persistent and concentrated youth unemployment. If implemented properly, local development initiatives can bolster efforts to create employment, tackle poverty and improve governance. VOLEM project aims to strengthen the recognition of key competences acquired by young adults during volunteer activities in local development and to promote them as valuable for their entrance into the labour market. This strategic partnership is a cross-sectorial cooperation between the Municipality of Cinisello-Balsamo (public body, IT) UAESS-CAP SOLIDAIRE (non-profit organisation, FR) ART SQUARE (company, LU). The objectives - To raise awareness and upskill volunteering stakeholders and young people on innovative youth volunteering experiences in the field of local development- To design a competency framework using innovative badges for the validation of competences acquired through voluntary action in local development by young people- To boost the vocational integration and the employability of the youth by the recognition of their skills and knowledge acquired during their voluntary missions.- To strengthen the capacities of the organizations working with volunteers.- To create working synergies in the promotion of voluntary missions in Europe and the recognition of competences acquired by the young volunteers at the local or European Union level.Participants will be young people, young volunteers, and youth workers and will be more than 200 direct participants (about 80 youth workers and more than 130 young people) and more than indirect 600 participantsActivities and methodology As first, the VOLEM consortium will co-design a template in order to collect case studies, projects, practices etc. (IO1) based on specific criteria such has for example the key competences (innovation/creativity, teamwork, project management, entrepreneurship culture) that are developed during the volunteering experiences in local development. The second production will bring the partners to design awareness raising and promotion toolkit on the added value of youth volunteering in local development context (IO2) based on the key findings which emerged from the first activity (IO1). This production will in the future enable volunteering organisations (national and European) to have tools to raise awareness and encourage young people to volunteer but also to raise awareness among youth workers and local actors about the skills that can be enhanced through volunteering experiences in local development.The third production (IO3) will design a competences framework for the skills that could be acquire in local development volunteering experiences using innovative digital badges methodology. This third IO will give sustainability to the transfer of the toolkits (IO1 and IO2), giving the opportunity to the youth workers to capitalize what they have experienced and learnt for the benefit of the youth they work with.Furthermore, two learning and training activities will be organised: one short-term staff training in order to aware and upskils youth workers on local development and social innovation initiatives as incubators for transversal key competences, and a blended mobility for young people to experiment design thinking methodology and contribute in the IO3.ResultsCreation of innovative tools for the validation of the competencies acquired through voluntary activities in local development Experimentation by the youth workers on the use of the innovative developed tools in particular digital open badgesCreation of a connection between the experience of volunteering in local development and the labor market. Dissemination of tools and experiences of the project among all subjects potentially interested: public institutions, local development stakeholders and volunteersExpected impactA bigger awareness about volunteering as useful way for the entrance into labor market The ability to valorize in job seeking the transversal competences learned in local development volunteeringAwareness of the importance of educating and acting for a more sustainable local developmentA higher sense of belonging to the European Union and the desire to get involved in European activities and motilitiesFinally the potential longer term benefits. - Enhancing skills of youth workers in the local development field- Facilitate the access to employment of the youth volunteers- Help the target groups to develop a renovated sense of shared and common European values and identity;- Improve the level of communication, coordination and joint work between the institutions involved, promoting and enhancing good practices, both at national (for the partner’s countries) and European level