"The EU Directive 2012/29 of the European Parliament reaffirms the principle that ""a crime is not only a wrong to society, but also a violation of the individual rights of victims"". Restorative justice starts from the assumption that the crime generates a conflict that causes the breaking of symbolically shared social expectations. The crime becomes an offense that does not only affect those who committed it and those who sanction it with the sentence, but who has suffered the wrong and the laceration: the victim and society. With both, the fractures must be repaired, not so much with monetary compensations, but with positive actions. Fundamentals of restorative justice are: the responsibility of the offender to whom a proactive attitude is required, the recognition of the victim whose suffering must be repaired, the involvement of the community in the process of reparation of the damage. This approach, used extensively in European countries for the re-education of minors, took off differently in adult re-education. In Belgium, for example, the law on Restorative Justice dates back to 2005, Ireland is successfully experimenting restorative practices with the restorative communities. In Italy, restorative justice has been recently introduced (law 67/2014) with probation measures through works of public utility. According a research carried out in years 2015-2017 by the Criminal Execution Office of Pisa (belonging to the Italian Ministry of Justice), restorative measures towards the offended communities are growing in Italy. This is leading to the strengthening of local networks made up of cooperatives, associations, NGOs, local communities and Public Institutions supporting offenders in their path toward the restoration in favour of the community. However, it is now crucial to move from the sole voluntary service to the community - still appreciable – towards a more professional restorative approach, involving effective practices and reliable methodologies relative to the offenders, the victims and the community. Thus, KINTSUGI general objective seeks at fostering social inclusion of people subjected to alternative measures to detention for crimes of through the implementation of restorative practices paths. In doing this, the project intends to improve the skills and competences of the trainers/operators of the organizations cooperating in ""probation measures through works of public utility"" and in other measures alternative to detention. The aim is to facilitate the implementation of restorative justice paths, spreading the meaning of reparation and promoting the assumption of responsible attitudes towards victims, society and community rules. To achieve this objective, KINTSUGI brings together a specific partnership made up of adult education and restorative justice organizations coming from Italy, Belgium and Northern Ireland, and counting with the associate participation of the Italian Ministry of Justice. The working methodology schedules two project phases one for preparation of and one for implementation. Thus, firstly, project partners will have the opportunity to share European restorative justice practices, to capitalize working methods and to develop a joint training program for staff. Then, 25 participants will be selected among social workers, trainers and offender’s tutors, mediators specialized in the victim-offender relationship and/or in family mediation and community conflicts, and they will participate in the 90-hours joint training program taking place through weekly sessions in Northern Ireland, Italy and Belgium. Throughout the whole KINTSUGI life cycle, partners will be able to systematize links and build relationships, in order to create a real European network of actors working in the field of restorative justice. Thanks to the project, the awareness raising on restorative justice practices will spread both at national and European level, as well. The restorative practices will be enriched by new shared approaches, by the co-production of tools, agreements and methodologies. Thus, the Communities will become ""reparative"", no longer just useful to collaborate to offer opportunities to probationary people but with the new awareness of the function of being an instrument of mediation, acceptance, change and inclusion."

VETBUS2B is an international cooperation project proposing capacity building among EU Member States (Italy and Germany) and one third country not associated to Erasmus+ (Argentina) to contribute to the Programme’s general objective of reinforcing the links between the VET system and the labour market of third countries. Thus, VETBUS2B intends to work on the Cordoba regional context in Argentina by focusing on the very specific thematic area of the Work-Based Learning (WBL) playing a pivotal role when contributing to the competitiveness of enterprises and to the well-functioning of the labour market.In doing so VETBUS2B wants:1_ To promote local VET-business partnerships for skills anticipation related to specific professional profiles in the manufactural sector of Cordoba Region;2_ To improve VET- private sector staff cooperation to jointly design and implement WBL paths able to support the socio-economic development of the local territory;3_To increase the capacities of the Argentinian VET providers to innovate and internationalise their activities and to participate in Erasmus+ Programme.To reach these objectives project partners will firstly build a peer-learning community mixing online training events on the hot topics of the EU VET agenda with a study visit tour across Europe to better explore the former Erasmus+ “VETBUS” project and other good practices from which to capitalise ant transfer tools. Then, Argentinian partners will transfer the WBL pedagogical approach by mapping the emerging professional skills most required in their regional manufactural sector and by directly involving the local private actors in the very elaboration of a WBL curriculum for the “electronics technician” professional profile. The same curriculum will be finally piloted during the school’s year and validated into VET competences that students could further spend for any Erasmus+ experiences in Europe.

"The EU Directive 2012/29 states this principle ""a crime is not only a wrong to society, but also a violation of the individual rights of victims"". Restorative justice starts from the assumption that the crime generates a conflict that causes the breaking of symbolically shared social expectations. The crime becomes an offense that does not only affect those who committed it and those who sanction it with the sentence, but who has suffered the wrong and the laceration: the victim and society. The implementation of restorative justice (when possible) has several benefits in term of reduction of crime recurrence, reduction of post-traumatic stress symptoms and drop of the victim's desire for revenge against the offender. However, according a recent Report commissioned by the European Commission on the implementation status of the Directive EU, restorative justice doesn’t represent yet a founding concept of the justice system since different Member States do not have same approach in its introduction into their own legal systems. Thus, the Report asks to increase cooperation among justice practitioners (bottom-up approach) not only to better share tools, methodologies, good practices, etc. but also to joint search for effective solutions to common problems in Europe (e.g. secondary victimization of the victim).The general objective of PROTECT is to promote the victims’ rights protection (i.e. fostering victims’ social inclusion) through the implementation of restorative practices paths. In doing this, the project intends to improve the skills and competences of the trainers/operators of partners’ organizations working in the field of the restorative justice and of the support to the victims of crime. The objective will be pursued through the creation of a ""peer-learning community"", among some of the EU countries having effectively implemented the Directive, where partners can actively exchange knowledge, develop common training methodologies, foster professional competences and discuss problematic issues.To achieve this objective, PROTECT brings together a very specific partnership made up of adult education organisations coming from Italy, Belgium Spain, Portugal and Germany. Each of the partner organisation will bring to the project its professional expertise, in the field of restorative justice and/or of support to the victims of crime, and it will contribute to the capitalisation of complementary past project experiences (i.e. Erasmus+ project “KINTSUGI” and Justice projects “VictorIIa”, “SupportVoc” and “LetsGoByTalking”) from which is possible to transfer good practices and tools. The working methodology schedules two project phases one for preparation of and one for implementation. Firstly, project partners will set up the peer-learning community by sharing know-how, capitalising tools and practices coming of the projects involved, by jointly organising the capacity building program and the selection system for the personnel who will participate. Then, the 60 hours training programme will be implemented through 3 Short-term joint staff training events to be organised according to the peer-learning principle and non-formal education approach. Participants will be selected among partners’ staff having the following professional profiles: mediators, trainers, lawyers, psychologists, social workers and also external experts, teachers, researches, supervisors working in the partners’ organisations in direct cooperation with the Associated Partners organisations (City of Viterbo Council, Viterbo County and Arnera Social Enterprise from Pisa).Main results achieved by PROTECT will consist of the very creation of a permanent peer-learning community among European experts working in the field of the restorative justice and the protection of victims’ rights; the professional empowerment of staff belonging o the partners’ organisations through the joint training activities; the elaboration of training tools supporting the definition of a European model for training of sector’s operators (as indicated by Directive 2012/29/EU). Thanks to the project, participants will acquire a more specific vision of the potential of the restorative justice paradigm and they will trigger a multiplier effect of project results through their daily work in other contexts in which they use to operate (e.g. penitentiaries, support services for victims, etc.). Finally, PROTECT will set up the right framework for the permanent exchange of European practices between two systems - the restorative justice one and the victims protection one - often operating in parallel when have to manage disputes’ resolution but without any effective operational cooperation between its actors."