<< Background >>Municipality of Silivri gives a considerable attention on enhancing women in this suburban area. However, according to the records of the Silivri Chamber of Agriculture in 2020, only 50 (there are many unregistered female farmers) of the 2000 registered farmers are women farmers. This huge gap between female and male farmers shows the urgent necessity of women empowerment in agriculture sector in Silivri. Agricultural Production and Research Center (TURAM), established by Silivri Municipality in 2011, which focuses on women empowerment in agriculture sector, has 255 acres of land for implications, research and trainings for farmers. TURAM conducts trainings to empower women farmers engaged in small-scale agricultural activities in the region, supports women cooperatives, provides machinery and equipment support for the production of value-added products, etc. However, although adult educators in our municipality are well enough in vocational sense, they are unfortunately insufficient in developing cooperatives trainings and other key skills. This is evident from the inadequate activities of women's role in cooperatives in our region and their inability to achieve sustainability.Being a member of agricultural cooperatives needs specific characteristics and basic skills that are missed the cut by female farmers because of the inadequate trainings about the cooperative system. These characteristics and skills can be counted as communication, understanding cooperatives, participation-learning-training (PLT) and digital competence. When there is lack of understanding the procedure of agricultural cooperatives, participation and sustainability decrease because members do not have the knowledge in basic rights, marketing, sales strategy management and organizing planning. If the communication in the cooperatives is not oughtness, members would not work in a harmony and cannot get the sustainability. Since there is no proper learning of these socio-behavioural concepts, learners cannot develop empathy, communication in business ethics, problem solving and critical thinking. Without these skills, they cannot be successful in the understanding cooperatives such as management, marketing and organizing. Importantly, digital transition which is a compulsory skill under the pandemic period as well as personal development is crucial for the agricultural cooperative systems.These trainings are provided at the university level and have no equivalent in adult education neither in Turkey nor in the countries of participating organizations. More active participation of adult educators is needed for women farmers to receive agricultural cooperatives training in a better quality and sustainable manner. In addition, through training and skills development, rural women and adult learners in general can play a much greater role in the development of agricultural value chains and, their cooperatives will contribute to the increases in economic and social value in their regions. The rate of European Parliament stated in previous question proves to needs of urgent intervention and innovative tools for women empowerment in agriculture sector in EU Countries.<< Objectives >>Since the project focus on women empowerment in agricultural cooperatives, the main objectives and expected achievements by implying it as follows,•To increase the agricultural cooperation and digital transformation skills of women farmers•To provide adult educators of the partnership organizations with methodology and tools which will help them to organize better their training courses on cooperatives and enhance their skills on training approach to women coming from rural areas.•To strengthen the capacity of the agricultural woman cooperatives through enhanced cooperation with adult education and providing innovative training•To encourage cooperative farming among woman and to raise of awareness of women entrepreneurship in rural areas.•Resolving the problems in the field of agricultural cooperatives by sharing the know-how and experiences of the participating institutions•Meeting the needs of the target group efficiently with a European perspective•Contribute to the empowerment of women in rural areas, which is a cross-border need•To generate innovative ideas from an international perspective•To provide women farmers with an improved training in agricultural cooperatives at EU level•Increasing the capacity and professionalism of participants at EU / international level•To reach wider audiences in disseminating project results•Contributing to the European Commission and Erasmus + priorities with women empowerment, rural development, sustainability and digital transformation.<< Implementation >>There are key activities for gaining the project objectives. If success is achieved in these activities, the planned results and project targets will be achieved. These activities are as follows,Development of Intellectual Outputs:The most important activities for meeting the needs of the target audience of the project and achieving the project goals are the development of the intellectual outputs. Three intellectual outputs will be developed in accordance with the project objectives as follows,Innovative Methodology for Agricultural Cooperatives Training,The first output in the project is an innovative methodology that contributes to other outputs. Thanks to this output, adult educators will increase the quality of agricultural cooperatives training and train women farmers with more effective methods. The know-how, experience and research of all partners will contribute while developing the output. In this way, the output will contain a comprehensive content from digital transformation to adult education.Training Module for Women Farmers,A training module will contribute to the development of women farmers in agricultural cooperatives and also increase their socioeconomic skills. With this module, women who are trained in agricultural cooperatives will also gain digital and communicative competencies. Thanks to the acquired skills, the goal of sustainability and empowerment of women in agricultural cooperatives will be achieved. As in the first output, all partners will work together and it will be ensured that the prepared module has an innovative and comprehensive content.AgroSis (e-Learning Platform),A platform will be developed for women to gain experience as well as theoretical knowledge and put what they have learned into practice. This platform will contain simulations, implication videos and online classes. All partners will work together to prepare and regularly update the contents, and will conduct developmental research at specific time periods. Thanks to this platform, women's empowerment will not remain in theory and will be put into practice. In addition, not only women farmers, but also adult educators will put their learning into practice through online education, cooperatives and simulations.Transnational Meetings:All partner institutions will take part in these meetings and the outputs will be evaluated in detail. Exchange of ideas and feedback will be made for these evaluations. In this way, the project outputs will be updated according to the feedbacks and they will be of the best quality. In addition, thanks to the transnational meetings, communication between partners will increase and the networks of participating institutions will expand.Multiplier Events:Multiplier events are an important activity for the dissemination of project results and to meet the needs of a wider target audience. Thanks to these events, the project outputs will support agricultural cooperatives training and women's empowerment in agricultural cooperatives both in Turkey and Europe. The project outputs, which offer innovative and modern agricultural cooperative education, will be able to reach policy makers and decision makers through these activities and will be used by many institutions in adult education.LTT Mobility for Adult Educators:Our partner AGACA, which has expertise and experience in the field of agricultural cooperatives, will host trainers training. In this way, adult educators will provide a more efficient education by developing on online education, adult education and new methods of agricultural cooperatives. Therefore, women farmers will be empowered in the field of agricultural cooperatives thanks to a higher quality education.<< Results >>The key goal of the project is to empower women farmers in agricultural cooperatives. To achieve this, the project seeks solutions to improve the profile and competencies of women farmers. In line with this purpose and need, tangible and intangible results will be obtained in the project. The most important tangible results of the project are the following intellectual outputs:- Innovative Methodology for Agricultural Cooperatives Training- Training Module for Women Farmers- AgroSis (e-Platform)In order to strengthen women farmers in agricultural cooperatives and to increase sustainability in these cooperatives, the project provides results for the development of women farmers. Thanks to these results, women farmers will increase their skills in agricultural cooperative with social, digital and managerial competencies. In order to acquire these competencies and achieve the project's purpose, an innovative methodology will be prepared to support adult educators who provide training to women farmers. While preparing this output, all partners will work together to bring the most innovative methods and modern perspectives. Thanks to the methodology to be designed, adult educators will provide female farmers with a content-rich training by transferring their knowledge more easily with effective techniques. Moreover, the LTT activity will also broaden the knowledge and experiences of adult educators to provide high quality agricultural cooperatives training. Training module, another output of the project, will be a comprehensive material for women farmers as a non-formal training. In this way, the competencies of women not only in the field of cooperatives but also in digital, social and administrative areas will increase throughout the training. This training module will be a learning material for female farmers and a teaching material for adult educators. In addition, it will be a learner-centered material thanks to the collaboration of local institutions that have information about the profile of women farmers and foreign institutions that are experts in the field of cooperatives. AgroSis platform will be prepared for adult educators and women farmers to gain experience and development as well as theoretical education. Thanks to the platform, women farmers and adult educators will put their digital skills into practice, gain experience through simulations, adapt to distance education and access auxiliary materials. With tangible results, obstacles to empower women farmers living in rural areas will be overcome by providing quality education and increasing competencies for success.The intangible results expected within the project are as follows:-The main target group of the project is women farmers living in rural areas. Thanks to the project, women farmers will have access to a better-quality education and will gain important skills. Thanks to these skills and effective training, female farmers will have economic power and will also be empowered in society.-Adult educators involved in the project will be more qualified than their colleagues in agricultural cooperative education and will expand the EU colleague network thanks to the transnational partnership.-The outputs of the project will be used by institutions such as public education centers, vocational training centers, associations, NGOs and will be delivered to adults who want to receive training in the field of agricultural cooperatives.-Thanks to the project, the networks of participating institutions and their recognition in Europe will increase.-With partnership, the outputs will be prepared with an advanced perspective and they will be used not only at local level but also national and international level.

<< Background >>Climate change adversely affects the socio-economic development in rural areas due to the decrease in water resources, agricultural production and labor. Sudden temperature changes, seasonal fluctuations and natural disasters such as floods, hails, storms, etc. lead to decrease in the production efficiency in agriculture and water scarcity. Creating awareness on climate change adaptation and raising human resources to fulfill these adaptations in agriculture has gained importance. Unfortunately, the curriculums of the agricultural vocational high schools do not raise students by addressing these contemporary climate change problems. This gap between the VET system and the agriculture sector causes inefficient use of scarce resources and makes rural areas vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. At this point, our project aims to enhance the capability of climate change adaptation and struggle with these unfavorable effects through VET learning on agricultural water-use efficiency in rural areas. In this respect, the needs that our project address are as in following:The current curriculums of agricultural VET system, especially in Turkey, are not up-to-date and do not address effective solutions for climate change adaptation on agricultureThere is a lack of a holistic, inclusive and innovative policy recommendation for VET system in line with climate change adaptationThe technical and institutional capacity of agricultural VET schools are not well-equippedVET trainers and providers’ knowledge and competencies on smart farming perspective to struggle with the adverse effects of climate change are not sufficient VET students’ attraction and sensitivity to create sustainable agricultural environment is low<< Objectives >>Our project aims to enhance climate change adaptation and resilience through VET learning on agriculture by addressing sustainable agricultural water management and agrometeorological literacy. The specific aims are:To improve the level of competencies and skills of VET students on agrometeorological literacy and sustainable irrigation management system.To equip VET teachers with educational materials and innovative training tools on agrometeorological literacy, new irrigation methods, smart farming and policies for climate change adaptation in agriculture. To raise an awareness of the significance of climate change adaptation on agricultureImplementation: What activities are you going to implement?developing a policy recommendation report to create an innovative agricultural VET system in line with climate change adaptation designing training modules on agro-meteorological literacy and agricultural water management designing an e-learning platform and a game applicationraising 4 VET trainers of TURAM and 2 staff members of of Silivri Municipality on agro-meteorological literacy and agricultural water management providing a pilot training programs to 30 VET students and a seminar to 50 farmers raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on agriculture<< Implementation >>WP1/ Preliminary: After the project approval, organizational, managerial and administrative preparations will be made under this work package. Within this framework, the following sub-activities will be carried out:1) The project identity work will be carried out.2) The dissemination plan will be prepared to pursue an efficient communication strategy between the project consortium and relevant stakeholders, and among the partners.3) Quality Assurance and Risk Management Plan will be prepared to draw an efficient framework for monitoring and evaluation system of the project. WP2/ Developing a policy recommendation report for an innovative agricultural VET system: Under this work package, PR-1/a policy recommendation report will be developed. This document also provides a basis for the training courses (PR-2 and PR-3). To do this, the following sub-activities will be implemented:1) Need analysis will be conducted through a workshop and a survey with the participation of 100 farmers in Silivri. (50 for other partners)2) Desk research will be carried out by reviewing the literature, data mining and searching international, national and regional policies and strategies related to the adaptation methods of climate change on the agricultural VET system, specifically the agricultural irrigation system and agrometeorological literacy.3) The curriculum examples and good practice examples of the consortium countries will be compiled4) All findings and inputs will be evaluated by the project partners and policies will be recommended to develop an innovative agricultural VET system in line with the climate change adaptation. This policy recommendation report will be presented to the attention of The Directorate-General for Vocational and Technical Education of Turkey in The Project Closing Meeting. Under the work packages of WP3 and WP4, the training courses on agricultural water management (PR-2) and agrometeorological literacy (PR-3) will be designed by the relevant project partners. Each training course will be designed in cooperation with 2 project partners. Within this scope, a literature review on these subjects will be made to prepare the theoretical part of the courses. Good practices and case studies will be examined. Quizzes will be prepared. Through these training courses, target groups will acquire the basic knowledge and key competencies on these subjects. Under the work package WP5 and WP6, an e-learning platform and game application will be designed and developed through the critics and recommendations of the partners. These innovative tools will not only make learning enjoyable but also raise awareness on the significance of these issues on agriculture in a wide audience. In addition to the training courses, The VET trainers and providers will be equipped with these tools for providing effective training to the target groups.Under the work package WP7, training of trainers will be provided to 4 VET trainers of TURAM and 2 staff members of the municipality by the project partners responsible for designing training courses. This will guarantee the sustainability of the training programs and the derived services after the project finalization. Through the work package of WP8, the trained VET trainers and providers will provide the pilot training to 30 VET students of TURAM under the school club and give a seminar to 50 farmers.WP9/ Quality Assurance and Risk Management System: This work package will assure the quality of the project results and activities through a vigorous monitoring and evaluation system.WP10/ Closing: The whole project management and implementation process including the project results and activities will be assessed by the project partners in The Ex-Post Evaluation Project Meeting. The project results will be disseminated through multiplier events at local, national and international levels.<< Results >>With our project, the following project results will be expected to received:1- A policy recommendation document for an innovative agricultural VET system focusing on agro-meteorological literacy and agricultural water management will be prepared.2- A training course on agricultural water management will be designed. 3- A training course on agro-meteorological literacy will be designed. 4- An e-learning platform including the training courses, internship matching system between farmers and students and self assessment tool for farmers will be designed.5- A game application on the impacts of climate change on agriculture will be designed. Besides, the following outcomes will be expected to received:Raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on agricultureDeveloping competencies and skills of the target groups on sustainable agricultural water management and agrometeorological literacy Increasing the technical and institutional capacity of agricultural VET schools Improving knowledge and competencies of VET trainers and providers Attracting VET students’ attention to create a sustainable agricultural environment and increasing their sensitivity to climate changeSharing knowledge and experience among the partners