The project aims to reinforce the olive oil sector through capacity building for the production of high quality olive oil with health protective properties. The project will focus on the exchange of good practices in olive oil producing countries and aspires to create a pool of adequately trained stakeholders of the olive oil sector, namely: producers, olive millers, bottling companies etc. who will be able to add value to their final product. The project builds on existing know how developed within ARISTOIL project co- financed through Interreg Med programme regarding the Reinforcement of the Mediterranean olive oil sector competitiveness through development and application of innovative production and quality control methodologies related to olive oil health protecting properties. ARISTOIL has developed a database with approximately 2500 producers from Mediterranean who have already benefited from the project and participated to trainings. These producers whose number increases in the course of time can benefit also from a new project, the one proposed, which will focus not on experimentation and pilot testing anymore but instead on intensive training on topics that have been identified as crucial for all stakeholders to know in order to ensure olive oil of high quality and high competitiveness to the international markets.Training topics will be adapted to the needs of each stakeholder category, as identified by ARISTOIL project. In addition, past project under ERASMUS+ with title ECOLIVE has developed tools on distance learning regarding Organic production of Olive Oil which is going to be used to the extent that fits the purpose of the current proposal. SVIMED one of the partners of the proposed action had been a partner in ECOLIVE project too, so it will be them who will transfer this know-how to the current partnership.Producers will be trained on harvesting techniques, selection of the time for harvesting, plant protection and integrated pesticide management, olive mill selection criteria, organic production and integrated production management.Olive millers will be trained on olive oil management issues (standby temperature prior to pressing, cleanliness, etc.), temperature and time of kneading, centrifugation in the absence of water, Minimization of waiting time of olive oil in tanks before filtering.Bottling Companies will be trained on Ideal storage and bottling conditions for olive oil. Classification of olive oils with hygienic and organoleptic features.

"Gastro-tourism, culinary tourism or food and beverage tourism is the exploration of food/beverage as the purpose of tourism. It is now considered a vital component of the tourism experience. Dining out is common among tourists and ""food is believed to rank alongside climate, accommodation, and scenery"" in importance to tourists.Food/Beverage Tourism is ‘the act of travelling for a taste of place to get a sense of place’ Erik Wolf, Executive Director World Food Travel Association. Gastro-tourism, a niche that attracts billions in revenue worldwide, involves intentional pursuits of authentic memorable culinary experiences while travelling internationally, regionally or locally. For gastro-tourists, food/beverage is the motivation for travel; the locations merely functions as vehicles for gastronomic experiences (food-related-activities that involve behind-the-scenes observations, cultural/regional illuminations and often hands-on participation, culminating in partaking food or drink.) •7.2 travellers choose a destination by its food and drink*•53% of all travellers are ‘culinary’ travellers*•49% of all travellers are beverage travellers*• 80% of travellers research food and drink while they are visiting a destination*(* source World Food Travel Association)The fact that Food and Beverage helps to underline and strengthen local and regional identity is an important point for tourism development. Tourists are often in search of some kind of regional specificity or 'authenticity. Top Tourism Industry Benefits include sustainable, respectful, and educated visitors. Increased media coverage including social media influencers and food and travel bloggers. Increase in tax revenue allocated to government authorities. Increased community awareness and pride in local culinary cultures. Increased benefits to local economy in terms of tourism spend, local agriculture and employment. The BevTOUR project results will help food and beverage producers, and the support organisations and intermediaries in this sector all over Europe to understand the potential benefits of Food and Beverage Tourism to their own business, and to the wider region. It will help them to understand what is possible in terms of developing their tourism potential through best practice cases from around Europe.The results include;•Project Platform (website/app) •A handbook detailing best practices case studies in Food and Beverage Tourism from around Europe, and tools and templates to develop and promote a gastro-tourism destination.•A Tourists Guidebook of Food/Beverage Tourism projects in each partner country, a minimum of 33 projects covering a range of categories of food and beverage including suggested itineraries, recommended stop off points.The main aims and objectives (impact) of BevTOUR are; •To increase awareness among artisan food and beverage producers of the economic opportunity presented•To provide producers and regional intermediaries with the tools to develop their tourism product and marketing strategyProject partners have the requisite range or skills, experience, expertise and reach to deliver on this important project;•Strode College United Kingdom •Mullingar Employment Action Group Ireland •Inn Training Ltd, United Kingdom •Dramblys Social Creative Lab, Spain •Agency for Territorial Marketing, Slovenia •E-Code,Slovakia •Eurotracks France •Med.O.R.O. scarl Italy•Institute Of Entrepreneurship Development Greece •Sihtasutus Noored Teaduses Ja Ettevotluses Estonia•Comparative Research Network EV Germany•ESE, Ensino Superior Empresarial, LDA (European Business School), PortugalThe management and coordination will be based on the Institute of Project Management system and tools that will ensure the correct information processing and will present clearly the decision making responsibilities and tasks by partner. Project management will be closely interlinked with Quality Assurance, Monitoring & Control and Evaluation processes.The milestones of the project are summarized as follows;•Delivery of national reports from all partner jurisdictions, which will be compiled and reviewed with a view to inform the content of the intellectual outputs going forward. These reports will include a minimum 3 best practice case studies from each jurisdiction, minimum 33 in total.•Shortlisting of the case studies and selection of minimum 11 for the BevTOUR Handbook.•Compilation, testing, translations and release of the BevTOUR Guidebook, with minimum 33 BevTOUR destinations, itineraries and maps.•Development of tools, templates and campaign materials for BevTOUR campaigns•Revision and pilot testing of the intellectual outputs•Final revision and translation of intellectual outputs followed by publication and 'official launch'•Official Launch of the Project Web Platform, the BevTOUR Handbook which will include all project outputs, in 10 languages.•A series of Multiplier Events"

<< Background >>The traditional activities of fishing, marine farming and agriculture are strong images of the the territories' identity. Consumer demand for local, environmentally friendly and healthy products is growing. However, collaboration between the agricultural and maritime sectors is weak. Local policies and actions to promote local products very rarely, if ever, deal with land and sea products together, even though there are a number of common problems: an increase in the average age of professionals, sectors not very attractive to young people, difficulties in accessing the market, under-appreciation of products, lack of managerial, marketing and communication skills, etc. LandSea was developed from the shared observation of a lack of capacity of the territories and their actors to promote traditional activities of the land and sea. Indeed, the promotion of the agricultural sector (activities, products) and the maritime sector (fishing and breeding) is separately approached. It is a question of learning to renew the links and decompartmentalise the interventions of the actors of the territory. In all the territories covered by the project, initiatives have been carried out to promote only local rural products, but the producers have only benefited from communication support and not from capacity building. This lack of skills has been identified as a factor of weak local initiatives and higher value-added activities. Faced with the increasing ageing of local fisheries and aquaculture actors and the low attractiveness of these jobs, particularly for young people, it is necessary to strengthen their capacities and the ones of actors in the land and sea sectors in order to encourage innovation and the creation of new income-generating activities.The LandSea project responds to unmet needs in the project territories in terms of capacity building for actors, particularly in terms of promotion and involvement in the territories. The need to add value to products is the same for both land and sea. These two sectors have common elements to enhance such as short circuits, enhancement of know-how, local production, etc. and often encounter the same problems, in particular pollution, the drop in productivity, the ageing of the profession, etc. LandSea addresses the needs of different target groups a) future mentors: adults and organisations in the green and blue economy through training programmes capable of strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit of young people, local developers, project leaders, farmers, breeders, fishermen, and developing new joint entrepreneurial initiatives in their territory; b) adult workers linked to the rural and maritime economy (including those directly involved in agricultural and fisheries production) wishing to train to develop their entrepreneurial skills, but also young adults belonging to marginalised/underrepresented groups for better social and economic inclusion, through entrepreneurship and self-employment in the green and blue economy sector. c) other VET actors and the maritime and agricultural sector to improve the professionalisation of workers and to move towards qualitative exploitation through complementary activities with high added value.<< Objectives >>The project aims to provide free online access to innovative training contents to strengthen the capacities and skills of local actors (and training centres) wishing to jointly valorise land and sea products so that they can become mentors, local ambassadors or resource persons of the local heritage of these local products. The aim is also to raise awareness of the need for joint promotion and the opportunities that this can bring to the project territories (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece, Italy) and even more so throughout Europe.The development of entrepreneurship, possibly collective, is presented as a solution allowing income-generating activities and a dynamic of the territory because it responds to a growing demand from consumers. The impacts of the project will be the following:Among the target groups:- Improved accessibility to training resources (contents, methodologies, etc.) on the green and blue economy and local development dynamics, - Increasing professional skills and knowledge in the areas of the blue and green economy, entrepreneurship and sustainable local development approaches,- The improvement of learning methods through innovative training materials;- The promotion of the cultural diversity of the European Union as the guide will promote 7 discovery tours of the partner countries;- Improving competitiveness and entrepreneurship, employability in these regions and living conditions- Reducing the unemployment rate among young people- Stimulation of the green and blue economy in the project territories and in other coastal regions of the Mediterranean basin (Southern shore, Black Sea)At local, regional and national level:- professionalisation of the agricultural and maritime sectors, taking into account these two dimensions in the Mediterranean and Black Sea: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece and Italy- technological development and improvement of competitiveness through the promotion of new local, regional and/or national projects jointly or on societal, environmental and economic issues of the green and blue economy sectors.thus allowing :- the appropriation of local development approaches, particularly in favour of employment,- the strengthening of local economies in rural and maritime regions through a joint approach to traditional land and sea-based activities, particularly where unemployment is high- the development of the common maritime, rural and agricultural heritage- the initiation of a sustainable local development approach and a better management of local resources, At European and/or international level: - Improvement of knowledge in the use of ICT for professionals in the project sectors at European and/or international level- Professionalization of the sectors at European and/or international level- Promotion of diversification of activities and preservation of local resources- Raising awareness at European and international level on the need for a common and cross-sectoral approach in the green and blue economy sectorsMoreover, the methods and activities developed can be transferred to other territorial contexts that lend themselves to transnational, intercultural cooperation and a participatory approach to solving common problems of territories linked to the rural and maritime world.<< Implementation >>The activities to be implemented will be the following: R1 - LandSea training contents on the joint valorisation of land-sea productsR1A1 - Construction of a skills grid and a training curriculum based on the needs analysis and the results of the Local Stakeholder Committee (LSC) meetingsR1A2 - Development of training contents according to the expertise of each partner, in particular on the green and blue economy, sustainable development, circular economy, environmental issues; entrepreneurship (procedures and management); sustainable marketing (communication, tools); available funds and financing; cooperation and territorial dynamics (local animation), short circuits, diversification of activities, tourism, etc. R1A3 - Development of self-assessment quizzes so that each learner knows which module to focus onR1A4 - Translation into all languages for increased availability of the training in 6 languages (EN, FR, BG, GR, IT, ES)C1 - A 3-day training workshop will take place in Bulgaria for 14 adults, future mentors, based on the contents of R1 in order to become local facilitators, capable of initiating the joint land-sea valorisation process in their territory. This training activity will allow to evaluate and give qualitative feedback on the contents developed.R1A5 - Revision of contents following C1.R2 - LandSea methodological guideR2A1 - Elaboration of the LandSea guide giving a methodology for prefiguring the LandSea discovery circuit, the guide will allow to be able to autonomously: identify the local products and land-sea know-how, as well as the heritage likely to be highlighted, define and set up the modalities of circuits adapted to the territory, conceive circuits in a participative way and finally materialize and animate the discovery circuit. R2A2 - LandSea pilot action via the collection of the characteristics of each territory with the CLPPs, the organisation of a pilot participative workshop in each territory with at least 5 participants per partner which will lead to the prefiguration of a land-sea pilot circuit (i.e. 7 circuits in total for the project)R2A3 - Finalisation of the methodological guide according to the feedback from the participants in the pilot action and with the finalised pilot circuits as illustration. R3 - LandSea e-learning platformR3A1 - Design and development of the platform - Collective choice of the platform on the proposal of the coordinatorR3A2 - Transformation of the questionnaire into a self-test of online skills assessment so that autonomous learners on the online platform know which modules to focus on. R3A3 - Digitalisation of the training content to become a free online learning pathway - the training contents will be transformed to become accessible and playful, pedagogical work will be done on the existing contents as well as illustrationR3A4 - Transformation of the LandSea guide into an e-book in order to have access to each step of the methodology in an interactive way R3A5 - Construction of a virtual library: all the resources used by the project partners will be available to the learnersR3A6 - Valorisation of competences - the competences acquired through the training will give access to a certificate of participation and to competence badges. R3A7 - Revision of the platform according to the feedback of the pilot action for finalisation<< Results >>The expected results of the project are :- The availability of relevant training contents allowing to train in the valorisation of land-sea products on one's own territory in direct link with local productions for the elaboration of sustainable commercial strategies with higher added value; - This training will allow to train directly and collectively via a transnational workshop of 14 mentors in Bulgaria and will thus allow to install collective dynamics favourable to the emergence of a European citizenship based on the reciprocal knowledge of the heritage of the agricultural and maritime world of the partner countries.- The availability of a methodological guide for the joint promotion of local products from the land and from the sea, particularly through the organisation of tours and the diversification of activities via tourism. Experiments in tourism diversification will be carried out within the framework of the project: - 7 prefigured discovery tours - Participation and practical training (methodology) enabling 35 local participants to familiarise themselves with the methodology in order to reproduce it or to enhance their production towards tourism or heritage enhancement actors. - This methodological guide is based on a participatory approach and will allow the actors who appropriate it to highlight the assets of their territory and to open up to any actor interested in joining the initiative.- Free access to the previous results by digitising the LandSea training content and by transforming the LandSea methodological guide into an Ebook via a fun and practical learning platform, allowing independent training while being able to value the skills acquired via badges. - This online platform will make it possible to enhance the value of the project's results, to encourage their appropriation by a larger number of target groups and to strengthen the promotion of the added value of the activity of agricultural and maritime actors in the territory. - This platform provides access to lifelong learning. The results of the project will be available in all the languages of the partnership and in English in order to be accessible to as many people as possible. - It will allow farmers, fishermen and other economic actors in the EU and the Mediterranean basin (both in the South and in the North) to be introduced to a new way of valorising and diversifying local land-sea productions that generate new sources of income. Vocations and professional projects could be created among young people and adults (unemployed, looking for a new professional project) that would enhance the identity of their territory. All this work will help to strengthen the spirit of enterprise, and will generate new initiatives in the green and blue economy sector in a logic of sustainable development.

The EU is currently facing a paradox: while the youth employment rate stands at 16.1%, there are around 2 million unfilled vacancies across Europe. It has been elaborated that this paradox might be attributed to the fact that “a high number of employers cannot find the right mix of skills in the job market, especially with regard to e-skills.”(Eurostat, 2017, app.1,pt.5). The explanation has been supported by employers themselves who when recruiting young people, look first and foremost for the right attitude and aptitude to enable young people to be effective in the workplace. In particular, 5 key competences are foreseen: - Communication - Adaptability / flexibility - Creative thinking - Problem Solving - Teamwork In order to overcome this skills mismatch, better VET provision is needed to include those soft skills and better prepare the youth entrance on the labor market. The main objective of STRATAGAME is to support young people in acquiring and developing key soft employability, developing an effective open and innovative education through the use of ICT and contributing to professional development of the VET teachers by including common methodologies for introducing soft employability in curricula. These objectives were achieved by providing VET teachers with specific tools enabling them to include soft skills teaching in their professional activity, by developing an online diagnostic test to assess the soft skills of young people such as communication, adaptability/flexibility, creative thinking, problem solving and teamwork; by creating an online game to let young people and VET leaders develop the above mentioned soft skills and by providing to VET teachers electronic guides, equipping VET teachers with digital guides on didactic methods for incorporating the diagnostic test and the online game on soft skills within wider classroom activities. Partners are 7 entities from 5 European countries including Romania, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Turkey. All of them are educational providers and or stakeholders working for territorial development and labor insertion thanks to better adequation of skills to the market demands. The working team created for the implementation of STRATAGAME work under the leadership of the Romanian partner CDA: Arad Development Center. Then, STRATAGAME involves in the project activities two main target groups: VET teachers, including I-VET and C-VET formal, non-formal, and informal providers from all kinds of subjects and specialization to integrate soft skills among their activities. At least 140 VET teachers were planned to be directly involved in the development of project products. As the second target, STRATAGAME addresses young people understood as VET learners and potential VET learners facing the need for soft skills to facilitate their labor market integration. Again, at least 140 young people were planned to be directly engaged during the development of the project outputs. Finally, STRATAGAME also works with educational stakeholders such as VET institutions and teachers associations, youth associations, business associations, employment services, among others, with the aim of widening the outputs diffusion and impact. Description of activities STRATAGAME developed three main products: 1) A Diagnostic test, made of a set of psychometric questions and which aimed at drawing an evaluation of the youth level of competences in the 5 key soft skills addressed. This tool is helping teachers to assess their students' level of knowledge and provides young people with a deeper self-understanding. 2) An online game, which has the form of one building with 5 rooms, each one presenting a new challenge corresponding to one of the 5 competencies. 3) Electronic guides, which are supporting tools given to the teachers with teaching notes related to the online games, new scenarios for classroom implementation, sources of information and references on soft skills theoretical contents, best practices, etc. The methodology used for the development of STRATAGAME products relies upon educational gamification theory. The idea behind it is that learners are motivated and remind better the knowledge while entertaining. Also, it is participative and interactive, based on real cases and a contextual approach. Results and impact The project brings important impact on VET teachers by providing them with a selection of innovative didactic tools to apply within current methodologies and the daily classroom while getting increased teaching effectiveness, an increased understanding of the employer's’ requirements, and higher overall job satisfaction and motivation for Continuous Professional Development- The project has a positive impact on youth by developing their soft skills with the use of online tools resulting in an increased professional potential, an increased level of awareness of their own soft skills, increased confidence in their employability potential, and higher chances of getting a job. Soft skills are crucial not only in the workplace but also in daily life. By developing soft skills in the classroom, young people increase their chances of success within such fields as completion of assignments (time management), peer relationships (teamwork), and job hunting (networking). As long term benefits, partners expect to contribute to a better-trained youth generation able to be more efficient at the time of answering to employers expectation, thanks to an overcome of soft skills mismatch.

<< Objectives >>INFINITY project aims to develop an educational program to train migrants to improve financial, entrepreneurship and soft skills for a successful and stable life of migrants in EE and how important are the skills and the ability to use financial resources to make decisions and increase self-employment. INFINITY seeks to ensure that migrants become productive members that contribute to society and thus promote the welfare and growth of the area they live in.<< Implementation >>WP1: Curriculum that will include, inter alia, pedagogical resources created to enhance migrants' knowledge of budgeting, financial health, and familiarity with the financial systemWP2: INFINITY Instructor Handbook for Young Employees will be created, to ensure the quality of the training program and the achievement of its objectivesWP3: A digital application will be developedWP4: Create an e-learning portal with all the necessary resources and will have online tools to support WP.<< Results >>The expected results regarding migrants are:Thorough understanding of the concepts financially, financial context, content, concepts, and the importance of being financially literate improve financial skills and abilities needed to understand and manage day-to-day financial issues as well as recognize financial opportunities and make financial decisions, make financial plans, proper debt management, use of financial applications and much more. The final result is to increase self employment