The Post-YU for Learning Emancipation (PYLE) was a strategic partnership project in the field of adult education primarily aimed for developing new, innovative and complementary tools and models for empowering learners in the region and fostering autonomous employability among youth in early adulthood. We built cooperation between three partner organizations, Zavod Bob from Slovenia, Volonterski centar Istra from Croatia and CYA Krik from Macedonia. The project went on for 27 months - from September 2017 till November 2019.Our starting point was high unemployment and non-permanent employment rates of youth in early adulthood (18 to 29 years) in countries of partner organization. Among youth in early adulthood there are many who come to position when they are being left out and remain long-term unemployed. In this group we find unemployed due to low-skillness, the imbalance between the possibilities on the job market and type of education and as well so called NEETs. After reviewing educational opportunities for these target groups as the ones that need supportive and stimulating learning environment and mentoring support we find that there are few or no suitable programs for them. In this regard we aimed to improve opportunities for their involvement and access to education. In a strategic partnership in the field of youth we created a non-formal educational program PDCAE (http://www.zavod-bob.si/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PDCAE_IntellectualOutput.pdf) intended to support participants in developing and implementing project ideas that have a potential for participants’ autonomous employments. The pedagogical and methodological basis of the program provides participants with developing basic skills, transversal, soft skills, entrepreneurial skills. Due to specifics and vulnerability of the target group of PDCAE, mentioned above, mentor support in the program is essential. In this regard the target group of this strategic partnership are professionals, adult educators who work with young people in early adulthood: youth workers, social pedagogues, andragogues and pedagogues, psychologists, social workers and others, interested in training for working with unemployed youth. For taking part in this project we animated the unemployed graduates of humanistic studies to get involved and join the training and/or other project activities in all stages of the project.With the activities in PYLE we were focusing on two main points: - Creating and publishing intellectual outputsWe tested and evaluated the training for PDCAE mentors with 27 participants. Based on the findings from the implementation we created an Informal Curriculum for PDCAE Mentor Training that is as well transferable to other trainings for working with the unemployed youth in early adulthood. Within the National Recommendations on Implementing PDCAE Mentor Training we published the evaluation findings from the pilot implementations of the training - based on those the evaluators wrote the recommendation for further implementations of the training. The partnership aimed to introduce concepts of emancipatory and transformative learning that are not appreciated in socio-cultural environments of partner organizations even though good practice and research from around the world have shown good impacts on many levels. Thus we as well created and published Pedagogical Outlines for Emancipated Learning to foster reflection on contemporary approaches to learning, especially in adult education, and beyond.- Establishing conditions for implementing the PDCAE program and mentor training in countries/regions of partner organizationsAll partner organizations were presenting project results to policy makers with the aim to raise awareness among them and to explore possibilities for providing facilities and funds. In Slovenia we are currently in the process for public justification of the PDCAE program in cooperation with Youth Network MaMa and Education Development and Quality Office of the Ministry of Education, in Macedonia they are negotiating with the Employment Office to implement the program within the Youth Guarantee. We maintained and moderated a Knowledge Exchange Base (KEB), a web platform on pyle.si, that served as a board for pinning various topic clouds: project news, emancipatory and transformative learning practices, youth employability, good practice stories, legislation and research, knowledge exchange etc.. Interested public can use KEB as a meeting point of materials/documents concerning adult formal and non-formal education, youth work, examples of good practices and PYLE project news. It also served the project for publishing intellectual outputs.Throughout the project we met on five Transnational Project meetings hosted by all project partners and organized four Multiplying Events: 24th of September 2019 in Skopje, Macedonia, 22nd of October 2019 in Ljubljana, Slovenia and 31st of October and 27th of November in Pula, Croatia.

The Strategic Partnership for Access to Volunteering is a cross-European research and development project with the core aim of increasing the inclusion of young people with disabilities in volunteering projects. The project is based on feedback and research from previous volunteering projects which identified access for youth with disabilities to volunteering projects as limited and often completely disabling. Young people with disabilities are known to face multiple barriers to being able to actively participate in volunteering projects. Barriers include such things as physical access, lack of accessible resources, no access to additional support from the application stage to project completion, lack of knowledge and understanding of different disabilities, and lack of consideration for inclusion at the planning and project design stage. This project aims to address this through developing a simple toolkit to enable organisations to design and implement more inclusive projects. The active engagement of young people with disabilities ensures their perspectives and experiences help shape the final product and that the project itself is fully inclusive. Delivered through a partnership of 4 organisations based in the UK, Romania, Italy and North Macedonia, and led by International Service, a UK international development organisation, the project brings together an extensive base of disability, youth, volunteering and educational expertise and experience. The core partners are International Service (UK) CYA Krik ( North Macedonia), Ferfilo ( Italy) and Offensiva Tirenilo ( Romania). The key components of the project are: - an initial phase of research- the development of a toolkit for training - testing and finalising this toolkit with youth workers, youth with disabilities and partner staff- delivery of initial training using the toolkit -production and sharing of an on line toolkit for training which supports the development of youth work practice around inclusive volunteering.The research investigates the barriers and challenges faced by young people living with disabilities which hinder their active participation in youth volunteering projects. The project partners will engage 75 organisations in each of the four countries which work with people living with disabilities to collect information from their members or beneficiaries. At least 200 people per country will be contacted to ensure the basis of the research is robust. Through collation and analysis of this information and feedback, a research report will be created. The research report will inform the creation of a training toolkit which will be able to be used by any organisation which carries out youth volunteering projects, to help them become more inclusive.The toolkit will be tested with a group of mainstream youth workers and young people with disabilities, and then refined before being shared more widely.The overall intended impact of this project is increased knowledge and understanding of the challenges facing young people living with disabilities and their access to volunteering, as well as increased inclusion of these young people in cross-European volunteering projects through the use of the training toolkit and applying this learning and guidance in project planning and practice.

"The project Growth and Access for Millennials of Erasmus+ (GAME+) is 24 months Strategic Partnership Innovation project in the filed of youth, focusing on Youth workers' capacity building throughout involving new digital tool. The partnership operates in a European context where countries involved noticed the need of digital inclusion and involving new digital methods. This project will be focused on providing support to the youth workers and organizations when they are preparing their regular activities and to support the digital participation and online learning of young people.The transnational partnership moves from a common grass-root background and agreed on the main objective of empowering and strengthening each partner methodology and digital competences of their youth workers for tackling common vulnerable target groups with effective reach-out activities based on creative approaches based on NFE: learning by doing. Specific objectives: -To offer new, innovative digital tool-educational game based on gamification method; -Improve the digital participation and digital inclusion of young people;-To encourage and motivate young people to use the educational games as a tool for online learning; -To straight the capacities of the youth workers, young people and youth organizations on European level. The target group that will be involved in the planned project activities project are: -Youth organizations which are providing grass root youth work activities on local level. -Youth workers which are working with young people on a daily basis.The youth workers that will be involved in the project activities are the staff from the participating organizations and experienced in delivering activities on national and international level. -Young people, coming from the project countries, involved on local activities for testing the digital tool, Learnus+Identified needs: -Continuous professional update for higher quality of youth work, for more effective reach out activities in emergency and development situations; -Filling the digital gap in professionals within organizations exploiting the big positive potential of digital Intellectual Outputs on youth participation;-Raising awareness in public opinion and policy makers about social issues affecting marginalized people, Quality of Youth Work and sustainable development goals as stated in Agenda 2030 related to Human rights and rights for education for all.Innovation: Learning by doing: ""PLAY TO LEARN, LEARN TO PLAY!""Aim of the project is to improve with an innovative ICT tool, namely an interactive and supportive digital tool/educational game for youngsters, the quality and effectiveness of reach out activities for young people. Learnus+ will be a portable and free downloadable educational game based on the gamification method which will support the youth workers while they are preparing their regular activities. The project will be include: -Transnational meetings in Poland, Portugal and Italy;-Guidelines for using gamification tools in youth work; -Creating digital tool-educational game, Learnus+, innovative digital tool that will support youth workers while they will prepare their regular activities and supporting the learning process of young people by using serious games;-Training activity for testing the digital tool; -Local activities for testing the digital tool in each country; -Multiplier events in each country.Expected results:-IO1, Guidelines for using gamification tools in youth work ; -IO2, Digital tool/educational game - Learnus+, that will aim to improve the knowledge and digital inclusion and digital participation of young people with typical development and young people with disabilities;-Youth workers build and strengthen their capacities by using digital tools in their activities at the local, national, and international level.The methodology chosen by the partnership embraces digital innovation for social purposes including digital and gamification approaches seen as new frontiers for learning purposes, active engagement of youth workers and young people.Serious games are a subgenre of serious storytelling, where storytelling is applied outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality.The idea shares aspects with simulation generally, but explicitly emphasizes the added pedagogical value of fun and competition. Conceptual learning in immersive virtual environments is a relatively young field but with an immense potential. Serious gaming can contribute to raise interest and motivation in students with a high potential to enhance the learning experience and families as well."

<< Background >>The overall European context is gradually recovering in terms of youth engagement and participation of youngsters in social and community life according to latest official data but still a lot of youngsters (if not the most) in all the 4 involved countries are not active, especially the ones with a difficult background. Our project wants to enter into the grass-root dimension in which the 4 partners daily operate, highlighting the high schoolers and including social inequities still affecting vulnerable target groups.The transnational partnership moves from a common grass-root background and agreed on the MAIN OBJECTIVE of empowering and strengthening each partner methodology and digital competences of their youth workers for tackling the climate changes with effective reach-out activities based on creative approaches. The consortium will implement a 24 months KA2 project in the field of youth with the main aim to improve the awareness for the climate changes and create interactive and digital resource for youth workers and young people which will support them in order to work on and improve the environment. Included in this project will be:- organizations from the partner countries operating on local and national level providing grass-root activities for young people- young people: Target group of the planned activities are young people aged up to 30. Priority will be given to young people which are: Motivated and interested in developing and working on improving the environment, young people with fewer opportunities, Young people enrolled in high schools in the project partners countries and involving young people from high schools and engaging the teachers in planning and implementing activities that will contribute to the fight with global warming.- youth workers who will motivate other young people to get included- staff from the schools- local relevant institutions and educational centers who will provide environmental activities where the young people can participateOur goal in this project is also to raise awareness of the possibilities for young people how to become more active. All the organizations in this project see this as an important thing and they have seen, that it doesn’t happen by itself. There are actions needed to make this happen in order to make a relevant change in the everyday routine of the youngsters.<< Objectives >>Objectives of the project:- To support the young people to nurture and take care of their environment- To raise awareness in the climate change issues with young people- To include and motivate young people with disabilities and with fewer opportunities to take part in the activities about the environment- To contribute to social inclusion by working in mixed groups with young people with and without disabilities - To give methods and resources to the youth workers and teachers to work with young people in supporting them in joining the fight against climate change- To provide easier access to the young people to take active part in the change- To make a long term impact and habits in the young people’s lives to better their environment<< Implementation >>The project is designed in the following activities: - 4 transnational meetings. On the meetings that will be held in each of the project countries, the relevant IO or LTTA will be planned in advance. In addition an evaluation of the past activities will be made in order to follow the progress of the project. On the kick off meeting, besides the plan for IO1, a project management strategy, financial aspects and plans for communication between partners will be made.- IO 1 Create and implement a research on the topic of engagement of young people in their local communities regarding the fight against global warming and connecting them with organizations or institutions that work in the region on the same topic: A research will be made in the high schools in all of the partner countries. The focus of the research is to find out how much the young students are involved and informed about the question of global warming in all of the partner countries. After the research is done, a mapping of organizations that offer services with environmental activities will be done, and a national report containing the information will be designed. A map is created connecting both the organizations that provide such services be promoted to the high schools where the young people could become active. Additionally a general report containing the similarities and differences of all of the partner country findings will be created.- IO2 Create a platform for young people to join in the cause of improving the environment: A platform that will publish the on-going initiatives on local level will be created where the young people can follow the activities in their local area where they can join. The young people will also be able to create their own initiative and promote it in order to get more people to join in their activities.- IO3 Public Awareness Campaign: The Public Awareness Campaign will be happening in each of the project partners countries. The Campaign will be ongoing online on the social medias and offline with events in each of the countries. The offline campaign will reach: youth organizations, young people and young people which are in the mainstream and special schools. During the campaign, the IO1 and IO2 will be promoted and will help to raise the awareness with the wider population in protecting the environment and get a wider audience to join.- LTTA: The training aims to get youth workers and professionals working in the schools to train them on the content from IO 1 and IO 2. These participants will have to be active in the follow up phase which is the local activities each of the partners will implement. - Local activities (from the management costs): Each of the project partner organizations are responsible to work with a group of young people and teachers which will be involved in the project activities and together to implement activities for young people to join in improving the environment. To create local initiatives in order to motive more young people to join in the climate change issues.- Multiplier events one in each of the project partners countries: the ME will be used to promote the IOs and the work the young people will do on local level. Invited on the ME will be youth workers, leaders of youth (work) organizations, professionals and policy makers active in the youth field of environment and especially linked to the specific topic of this project, teachers, educators, and representatives from municipalities, young people and with fewer opportunities, representatives of media to present them with the project outcomes. The objective is to spread the findings from IO1 and platform from IO2 to organizations who work with young people so that they can motivate and include the young people with and without disabilities in activities for bettering the environment.<< Results >>The partnership in this project expects the project to have a long-term impact in terms of engaging young people in getting involved in bettering their environment.EXPECTED RESULTS AND LONGER TERM BENEFITS- IO1 Research on youth workers' skills needs- IO2 digital platform for young people- IO3 Awareness raising campaigns in all countries on environmental issues- Training event for youth workers who will later motivate and engage more young people with and without disabilities in climate change activities- 4 multiplier events for disseminating project results and innovation- Social disadvantage reduced.- Engaged youth and motivated young people- Sustainable platform that young people will use after the finishing of the project and will continue the contribution to the climate changes.

"""Heroes and Heroines of youth sport work for inclusion"" was a KA2 Strategic Partnership fo innovation project, consisted of 4 European Partners from Italy, Germany, North Macedonia and Croatia. In accordance with needs analysis and EU recommendations, the project aimed to develop strategic tools and motivate/empower youth workers to develop more youth sport work activities that will explore and extract all the possible positive aspects of sports for developing consistent positive intercultural acceptance among our beneficiaries and inclusion of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants in our communities.Background: In our youth work for inclusion and intercultural acceptance we’ve noticed sport can bring people together, as when playing a sport together for the same team, team players are not focused on the interracial, intercultural, interreligious and other differences between them, but are focused on building quality team work together respecting each other’s strengths and weaknesses and complementing each other. Unfortunately, so far when trying to organise systematically the youth sport work activities with asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants, partners could not find enough youth workers experienced in the field of working with immigrants and in principles of using sport activities as methods in NFE/youth work. Objectives that were set and reached within the project:- Improved the understanding of the needs of immigrants by exploring their current situation and the (youth work) activities/programmes provided for their inclusion, in the 4 countries of the project.- Brought positive and long-lasting effects on participating and indirectly on non-participating (youth) organisations and youth workers by enhancing knowledge management with new innovative youth work resources and training models/curricula in order to provide quality youth (sport) work programmes for intercultural acceptance and inclusion of immigrants in our communities.- Supported youth workers in acquiring and developing key competences as youth trainers (of other youth workers) in the field of youth (sport) work for inclusion of immigrants.- Developed innovative outputs, and engaged in intensive dissemination and exploitation activities of existing and newly produced products or innovative ideas.Participants involved: 8 staff / project managers and assistants; 8 teachers/trainers/researchers and youth workers all working on the intellectual outputs; 95 participants of the multiplier events; 13 youth trainers - participants of the LTTA and over 40 multipliers (youth workers, volunteers and management staff – 10 from each partner organisation) that are and will be using the intellectual outputs in their youth work and testing their effectiveness locally both personal and on organisational level. Out of those 166, around 40 were young people with fewer opportunities. Project activities implemented within the project:A1 – Project ManagementM1 – Kick-off meeting in North MacedoniaO1 – Research Study on situation and activities/programmes for inclusion of immigrantsM2 – Second project meeting in GermanyO2 – Toolkit: youth (sport) workers and inclusion of immigrantsM3 – Third project meeting in CroatiaO3 – Curriculum: Using sport methods in youth work for inclusionC1 – LTTA “Training of trainers for youth sport work for inclusion of immigrants” in CroatiaE1, E2, E3 – National conferences and workshops “Heroes and heroines of youth sport work for inclusion” in MK, DE, HRE4 – International conference and workshop ""Heroes and heroines of youth sport work for inclusion"" in ItalyM4 – Final evaluation project meeting in ItalyA2 – Dissemination activities The project brought positive and long-lasting effects on partner organisations by increasing their knowledge on management, capacity and competences for providing quality youth sport work activities for inclusion of immigrants based on innovative approach in accordance with the intellectual outputs of the project – Research Study, Toolkit and Curriculum. Our youth workers strengthened their key competences in youth sport work for inclusion of immigrants, increased the opportunities for development of youngsters (mainstream and immigrants) in improving levels of soft skills and basic skills for inclusion. The partners in this project have developed and used the innovative intellectual outputs, promoted innovative methods and pedagogies, developed learning materials and tools in youth sport work for inclusion."