not necessary.

"<< Background >>A large number of articles report on underrepresented and marginalized groups as a cultural and economic threat to Europe. Additionally, online and offline articles about denying climate change have been described as the Ultimate conspiracy theory (Lopez and Share, 2020). However, the rise of fake news has not stopped yet. It even gets worse. The Anti-Rumour project ignores the debates over the false dichotomy between “fake” and “real” or “true” and “false”. It brings something new to the horizon in order to help youth identify conspiracy theories and fake news. The Anti-Rumour project aims to show some basic characteristics of such phenomena and how all conspiracy theories and fake news can be diagnosed academically in three simple steps following scholar’s Cas Mudde theories. According to the Dutch political scientist’s theories, fake news can be in the family of a broader phenomena that are characterized as ""a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, 'the pure people' versus 'the corrupt elite’"".Democracies are fragile and vulnerable when their citizens are not aware and well-informed, as well as when their citizens insist on not engaging in democratic processes, with turnout numbers increasing. At the same time, various European surveys show declining levels of trust in the political institutions of democracy. Research on the past and present challenges and tensions in democracy can help to understand better and strengthen democracy, its resilience and stability. It will foster democracy’s further development to enhance representation, participation, openness, pluralism, tolerance, the effectiveness of public policy, non-discrimination, civic engagement, the protection of fundamental rights (environmental rights are an extension of the basic human rights) and the rule of law. The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.The consortium believes that democratic governance is restored and strengthened by improving the accountability, transparency, effectiveness and trustworthiness of rule-of-law based institutions and policies and by expanding active and inclusive citizenship empowered by the safeguarding of fundamental rights.The project is strictly connected to EU’s priorities in regards to the Erasmus+ programme guide of 2021-2027, social inclusion and environmental awareness; as well as to some of the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN and is intended to be achieved by 2030. These SDGs are Goals 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13 and 16.<< Objectives >>The Anti-Rumour project aims to raise awareness regarding fake news's features and hidden discourses and understand the benefits of integrating young people into political discourses by engaging more youth organisations in the battle against fake news and conspiracy theories.The partner organisations noticed a need to have a common reference framework in youth work to be digitally savvy in an increasingly digitised world. Thus, this project will discover how to identify and overcome disinformation and tackle fake news, especially among young people who are more familiar with social media and can quickly transform into active media producers than passive media consumers. Social Inclusion and Environmental Awareness will be the two pillars addressed during the project's entire timeline. The project aims to enhance the participation of young people in democratic and civic life in the partner countries and Europe and grow scientific trust; it will support the fight against climate change - through environmental crisis awareness. Active citizenship will be strengthened. Anti-Rumour will enable young people to connect with civil society organisations and NGOs working on media literacy through the expected results and outcome of the project. It will increase social inclusion built on European values. Conspiracy theories will be approached through the lens of ""a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, 'the pure people' versus 'the corrupt elite"" (Cas Mudde, 2017). Lastly, the project aims to be the very first to approach Media Literacy in a gamified environment. Thus the project will help improve trust in democratic institutions, safeguard liberties and the rule of law and protect democracy from multidimensional threats.The project aims at increasing awareness on the importance of active citizenship among young people, as well as to make sure that young people trust public administrations and they acknowledge the importance of the common European values, which are inclusion, tolerance, justice, solidarity and non-discrimination. The Anti-Rumour objectives will be delivered by creating a Guidebook that will help youth to diagnose conspiracy theories and deal with fake news, making sure that it addresses phenomena related to climate change & environmental issues and marginalised groups & minorities. Secondly, the project will create a digital toolkit that includes online and free tools for tracking down disinformation. The toolkit will be accompanied by tutorial videos on how to use those tools. The third result will be an innovative serious game on Media Literacy against Conspiracy Theories. This result aims to incorporate a fun and entertaining aspect in the project, yet educational and informative. Lastly, the project will introduce a learning module composed of four Lessons along with their lesson plans in four different thematics:1. Marginalized/underrepresented Groups & Social Inclusion;2. Environmental awareness & Global Warming;3. Conspiracy theories and their key features; and4. Media Literacy - Protection & Empowerment.<< Implementation >>The Anti-Rumour project plans to have in total 4 Multiplier Events (3 Local and 1 International Final Conference).During those events, we expect at least 125 participants in total belonging to Anti-Rumour’s main and secondary target groups:a. Youth Organisations; b. Youth Workers/Educators/Trainers; c. Organizations Supporting Media Literacy Education; d. Organisations Supporting Information Literacy; e. Organisations focusing on environmental awareness; f. Organisations that work with minorities and socially excluded and underrepresented groups; such as LGBTQI+ people, migrants, refugees, poc, etc.These events will bring together:a) presentations of project results as well as presentations by the national project managers and researchers; andb) Lessons on Media Literacy focusing on environmental awareness and social inclusion.Project outcomes that will be promoted in particular will be the project key results, namely1. PR1.1 1 comprehensive list with a minimum of 15 resources on the existing situations in regards to fake news, rumours and conspiracy theories.2. Synthesis of Media Literacy and Academic Theories related to conspiracy theories performed by the youth trainers and educators3. PR1 publication: Anti-rumour Guidebook “How to diagnose conspiracy theories and how to deal with fake news”4. PR2 Toolkit for tracking down disinformation5. PR3 Serious Game & Game Instructions6. PR4 Publication of Learning Module and the Lesson Plans7. PR4.A6 Series of Lessons (Local Lessons Sessions)Additionally, Anti-Rumour will have 4 face-to-face TPMs, which will contribute to keeping the work plan flowing and facilitate the coordination of the project’s activities. SDC will be responsible for developing the agenda for each meeting, promoting the discussions and agreements among partners, and keeping minutes with the summarized action points that will serve as a monitoring tool in between meetings. For the purposes of our project’s management and coordination of the research activity, we have planned four official transnational meetings. For this case, each partner organization will select (amongst its employees) one researcher-coordinator.It is expected that 2 staff members will participate in the kick-off meeting and TPM4, while 1 member from each partner country will participate in TPM2 & TPM3. In case physical attendance is not possible, online participation is encouraged. In between meetings, quarterly online meetings will be promoted via ZOOM in order to keep track of the work in progress and implement corrective measures if necessary to enable a good work strategy.During these TPMs, the consortium will discuss the progress of PR1-4, as well as the actions taken in order to promote the project's sustainability, dissemination strategy, quality assurance and project management. Finally, the project's website and social media will sustain and promote the majority of the project's results and outcomes. Such outcomes can be either the finalised results that the consortium will produce or the material that the partners will use in order to achieve their desired outcomes; such as surveys, questionnaires, interviews, videos, etc.<< Results >>Through the implementation of this project and its project results, the main expected outcomes are:- The transformation of the teaching/training material that Youth Organisations and the rest of the target groups use;- The protection and empowerment of young people in social media, and the development of skills through media and information literacy. Additionally, young people will learn about contemporary, online, free tools- Anti-Rumour will combat disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories. More specifically, it will re-introduce youth to topics related to environmental awareness and social inclusion of marginalised groups.In addition to these three main outcomes, Anti-Rumour will also teach new skills and methods through a series of OERs. This will be done through the full exploitation of all the possibilities provided by Media Literacy, with the aim to transform young people from passive media consumers to active media producers.These OERs include:PR1: Anti-rumour Guidebook “How to diagnose conspiracy theories and how to deal with fake news”- 1 guide published in four languages (in digital format- epub) aiming to raise awareness regarding the threats that conspiracizing holds, especially against young people and to address problems that young people face in regards to misinformation related to environmental awareness and social inclusion.PR2: Toolkit for tracking down disinformation- The toolkit will include a collection of 15 online tools that can help online users to identify conspiracy theories, to find out when they began, to learn who is leading the conspiracy, and to discover which news stories, blog posts, and other links are appearing most frequently in online conversations. Each of the 15 tools will be accompanied by a tutorial video on how to use the tool.PR3: Serious Game on Media literacy and against conspiracy theories- The game focuses on assessing people's skills and personality characteristics who can identify different types of media and the messages they are sending.PR4: Anti-rumour Learning Module (including 4 lessons & lesson plans)- This result is basically the production of four distinct Lessons along with their Lesson Plans. The module will teach youth organisations and youth workers how to use that material. It will showcase how the material from PR1, PR2 and PR3 can be proven helpful for marginalized groups and environmental issues. The module will be divided into 4 lessons.In addition, the following organisational results are expected before the project’s completion:- Development of project website & integration of the website in partner organisation websites, which will not only report about the project and the activities but also will store most ofthe created materials after the end of the project as a part of project sustainability;-4 Local Lessons Sessions in the partners’ countries on 4 distinct Lessons and the accompanying material, gathering 100 people in total;-4 transnational partner meetings;-4 multiplier events in every participating country (1 international and 3 national events)."

"The project “Active Media Education for Disabled Youth” (AMEDY) deals with the challenges of the digital world for young people with light intellectual disabilities and the needs of the professionals that are working with this target group. Although young people with disabilities show high interest in digital technology and even use media intensively in socialisation, results show e.g. that bullying and victimisation seem to be more likely to happen to these young people. For them, it is often difficult to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital technologies; likewise, they also need special support to cope adequately with the risks they might encounter while using them. This project therefore aims to empower vulnerable youth by enhancing their media literacy and teaching them to make use of digital devices and services in a responsible and creative way. By training professionals and their organisations, they become media literacy experts and can pass on their knowledge to the vulnerable young people. However, there is still a lack of social media knowledge and media literacy among social services and their staff in several European countries. This was also confirmed by the previous EU projects and by a small survey of professionals who participated in this project. Digital literacy (basic instrumental ICT skills, information literacy, media literacy and computational thinking) must be effectively promoted in facilities where children und youth use digital devices and the internet. Also, as European society turns more digital, social care workers today are working in a field where digital competences have become a prerequisite to ensure high quality social care work, while also focussing on closing the digital divide in European societies. To further address the issues arising from the special needs of young people with light intellectual disabilities in the digital world, the AMEDY project has focused on the following objectives: - raising awareness for the importance of active media education for young people with intellectually disability on national and European level - meeting the demand of professionals working with this young target group to enhance their practical digital literacy knowledge - involving the management level of organisations working with young people with intellectually disability to raise awareness for further vocational training of the professionals who work directly with the young target group - offering support strategies for all involved target groups (young people & their parents, professionals, management level)During the 26 month project phase, an extensive collection of interesting and supportive materials was developed to contribute to solving the problems mentioned above.The collection includes an online training for professionals working with young people with intellectual disabilities, a support strategy paper suggesting how to deal with problems in everyday media use by young people, and a collection of best practices for events and actions that raise awareness for the special needs of this young target group. In addition, the interesting methodogical approach of ""Design Thinking"" was presented as well as a guide to develop support strategies and organise awareness raising activities yourself."

This project hopes to make a modest contribution to alleviating one of the most pressing challenges in Europe - relevant skills for employability. Today knowledge-based economies require people with higher skills. Problem solving, teamwork, creativity, organization, communication, leadership and digital competences are some of the core importance soft skills for current European labour markets. Development of the entrepreneurial skills is identified as competence for lifelong learning by the European Commission and it is seen as a gateway to employment and social inclusion throughout Europe. The non-formal education has flourished in recent years due to its flexibility, needs-based approach and complementarity to formal education. Thus, entrepreneurial skills development in non-formal education settings could be an effective alternative to increase employability of woman including with fewer opportunities and strengthen their competitiveness on the job market. Inspired by the wish to contribute to the above mentioned problem solving association Rural Internet Access Points together with partner organizations from Germany, Slovenia and Greece initiated a project aimed at developing entrepreneurship educational pathway for disadvantaged woman through applying project -based with integrated ICT learning approach in non-formal adult education institutions. The specific objectives are: 1. To support educators of adult non-formal education institutions in learning and training activities, in the acquisition and use of entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and qualifications to facilitate disadvantaged woman in personal development and employability; 2. Through exchanging the practices among partner organizations to develop a three step activity which includes designing learning strategy, creating training program and digital credential of skills of entrepreneurial competences by using Open Badge technology to promote greater employability of disadvantaged woman. 3. To support improvements in quality and innovation in learning and training systems, institutions and practices. 4. Enhance the attractiveness of entrepreneurial education and training in adult non-formal education institutions. Target audience: - 40 educators working at non-formal adult education institutions (adult training centres, librarians, social workers, telecentre employees, community centres, woman NGOs, networking organizations); - 200 disadvantaged women (unemployed, living in rural areas, single mothers, disabled, migrants, widows, etc.). As one of the innovative way to contribute to low entrepreneurial skill and ability is to use practical experiential learning models and real life entrepreneurial activity. This initiative differs from predominant approaches as the project strategy is focused on the implementation of entrepreneurial learning by using project-based with integrated ICT learning approach at adult non-formal education institutions. The synthesis of ICT and project-based learning promotes a pragmatic approach for strengthening entrepreneurial skills such as creativity, initiative, tenacity, teamwork, problem solving as well as take advantage of information, communication and technology (ICT) opportunities. By participating in an entrepreneurial learning activity both educators of adult non-formal education institutions and woman will be able to determine certain theme of the project, its context, format the team, project instruments, work time allocation, identification of real problem, forming alternative problem solving, designing process, to use different ICT tools in the project, presenting the product produced, measuring the success of the project, etc.

Background and aim of the projectDigital media is essential for communication and participation in today’s information society. Although senior citizens can benefit from digital opportunities, they are still the population group which is often not yet online. The project “Connect Seniors to the Digital World” (CSDW) therefore aims to empower senior citizens to use tablet computers independently and to benefit from this usage in their daily life.The objective of the project is to create a comprehensive training offer for staff and volunteers of institutions and sites where senior citizens can be supported in the use of tablet PCs. The need for such a training offer had been identified in the German project “Digital mobil im Alter” (Digital mobile in old age - https://digital-mobil-im-alter.de/), which lends tablet PCs to retirement homes and sheltered housing institutions and is conducted by the Digital Opportunities Foundation (SDC) in cooperation with Telefonica Germany since 2012. The Digital Opportunities Foundation is the coordinating organisation within this strategic partnership. The organisation aims to create the prerequisites needed for all people to become part of society and to shape it actively. It became clear that senior citizens need continuous support when using the mobile devices and that it is best when the support comes from people they know and that are around anyway – the institutions’ staff and volunteers. Additionally, the Association Rural Internet Access Points (VIPT) in Lithuania realized that there was a need to support seniors to enter the digital world. The goal of this organisation is to enable local individuals and institutions to build key elements of a modern and vibrant society through the promotion of new information and communication technologies (ICT), the expansion of resources that enable access to the Internet and through improving the quality of education. Two other strong and experienced partner organisations were involved in CSDW, the “Centre for the Innovation and Development of Education and Technology” (CIDET), Spain, and “Educating for an Open Society” (EOS), Romania. CIDET is focused on e-learning, understands technology as a tool, methodology and models. EOS aims to bridge the digital divide in Romania by helping people realise their full potential through the use of technology and works in a country, where the percentage of senior citizens who are not online is one of the highest throughout Europe.Project outputsThe four partner organisations conducted a small-scale study to collect information about: what senior citizens would like to do with tablet PCs; for what they need support; the training needs of the staff and volunteers of institutions for seniors (digital-seniors.eu/index.cfm/secid.265/key.242). 383 people above the age of 65 and 335 multipliers and 40 decision-makers of public education institutions (e.g. libraries) or institutions for senior citizens took part in the surveys that were conducted in January and February 2017. A course was created on the basis of the study’s results and on a blended learning approach (digital-seniors.eu/course). Within the project, the course was piloted with 47 participants in the four partner countries. The course included three face-to-face training sessions, two online workshops and eight weeks of self-learning on the online learning platform Edueca (www.edueca.eu, hosted by CIDET). The course, available in English, German, Spanish, Romanian, and Lithuanian on the online platform, was developed to contain all learning materials and content. Thus, it can stand alone after the duration of the project as a training offer for multipliers – without the need for face-to-face sessions - as well as a supplement for trainers of multipliers. Complementary to the course, the project partners developed guidelines, in which they evaluated and summarized the experiences from the first implementation of the blended learning course in four countries. The guidelines are available in the four partner languages and in English and provide good practices, convincing arguments and helpful recommendations to multipliers and decision-makers for setting up and conducting a training and supporting offer that empowers senior citizens in using tablet PCs in non-formal learning settings (digital-seniors.eu/index.cfm/secid.265/key.336). Furthermore, the partner consortium provided recommendations for organisations all over Europe about how to use the manifold project outputs to implement a training offer for multipliers in their countries, regions and cities (digitale-chancen.de/assets/includes/sendtext.cfm?aus=11&key=1569&pkey=2&dltype=2). In order to increase the attractiveness of the course, the videos that the participating multipliers recorded with their target group were published with English subtitles. To give a quick overview of the course, a handout with information from the main results was published in project languages.