"The project ""Fake the system: EU tools against disinformation"" represents a transnational initiative which involves institutions from 6 European countries: Italy, Bulgaria, Denmark,Lithuania, Portugal and Spain and aims to combat disinformation and fake news, especially those against Europe. According to the US Media Literacy Index report, fake news inEurope are considered much more reliable where three variables predominantly occure: level of education, freedom of the media and social trust. By averaging these three elements, Italy and Portugal are in the more or less median part of the ranking, while countries such as Lithuania and Bulgaria are among the last for each category. Spain has been at the center of a recent scandal on Twitter, which has closed many accounts with Spanish ID that spread fake news and made pro-government propaganda with fake news. Denmark, on the other hand, represents an admirable example for each variable, for example reaching a score of 70 points about the usability and freedom of the media and its participation will be crucial in the implementation of the project. Precisely for this reason the main objectives of the project are:-provide the tools to counteract disinformation and the phenomenon of fake news in an active way- Development of a critical attitude towards information with low reliability- Improvement of the usability of the opportunities of the European Union, through the promotion of European information channels- More responsible use of online media by young peopleThe selected participants will be boys and girls between 20 and 30 years old, 8 from each country. For being protagonists of the digital age in which we find ourselves, it is necessary to provide them tools to manage the Internet world, especially in terms of information and community policies from which they can benefit. Specifically, the project is aimed at these young people, in particular to those who are in situations of risk of social exclusion and who therefore have fewer opportunities than their peers participate in similar experiences. These are people who for geographical, economic and / or social reasons do not have the opportunity to travel, get to know people from other countries and live enriching experiences from a personal and professional point of view. In fact, many of these young people live in remote regions and not very connected with themetropolitan centers, or find themselves in economic difficulties that do not allow them to grow and make full use of their skills, or still live unfavorable family or social conditions. Once the participants have been selected, 5 workshops dedicated to the topic of fake news will be organized: through non-formal educational activities, it will be analyzed statistics on the incidence of the phenomenon in the various countries , government policies and social initiatives put in place to combat the problem (highlighting best practices), some of the main fact-checking tools will be addressed with the participants, testing them with a final simulation. Participants will gather the materials and skills learned to develop a toolkit, as the final result of the project. This will be available for free in PDF format and will be a tool made available to every European citizen in order to learn about the best practices adopted in various European countries at a political, social and legal level to counter the phenomenon of fake news and to learn firsthand how to use fact-checking tools. At the conclusion of the workshops, it will be organized a ""Blended"" mobility at the Portuguese partner's headquarters, to give wide visibility to the project, involving the participants directly to promote the launch of the toolkit, which will take place at the end of the third transnational meeting. The expected results therefore concern an increase in awareness at community level of the problem of fake news, of their impact on civil society and of the danger they constitute to solidarity at European level. Furthermore, the collection and exchange of good practices adopted to combat fake news, starting from a study of the sources, of the functioning of the fact-checking IT tools will be useful to citizens to have concrete tools to become actively involved in the detection of fake news. Providing digital skills to citizens, giving them a collection of good practices adopted in Europe against fake news will be the main impact of the project in the long run, thanks to a free toolkit that will be always available to everyone and will ensure its sustainability even involving other countries not directly involved."

<< Objectives >>Through the strategic partnership project and organizing activities in Lithuania and Spain, we would like to exchange experiences of the organization's staff, their ways and methods of working with youth through non-formal education with a special focus on those at risk of exclusion and those with disabilities. Participants will deepen their knowledge of exclusion and menstrual health in their country and Europe, which will make their work with youth even more effective and engaging. << Implementation >>During workshops, panel discussions and group work, participants will exchange good practices in working with young people with a particular focus on the needs of those at risk of exclusion and those with disabilities. They will also deepen their knowledge of menstrual exclusion and learn about its consequences, learn more about gynecological health and how to promote it among young people. They will learn how to create effective social campaigns.<< Results >>We will establish good, valuable and long-term partnerships between participating organizations from Spain, Poland and Lithuania. We will exchange good practices on methods of working with young people, with special attention to the needs of people with disabilities, in the context of promoting menstrual health and fighting menstrual taboos and exclusion. All campaigns, toolkits and materials created during all three activities will be posted on a multilingual website.

"<< Background >>Although many girls serenely navigate the transition to adulthood, many are not provided adequate support and opportunities to achieve their fullest potential. They live in a condition of exclusion because of their migrant background, because belonging to a disadvantaged family or for individual fragility and psychological patterns – and often for these factors combined. Their difficult socio-economic condition makes them ill-equipped to deal with the pressures around them, which in turn make them more likely to suffer from low-esteem, inactive lifestyles, bullying or to experience lower probabilities to attend a school suited to their attitudes. Gender bias often exacerbate their already difficult situations as they perpetuate stereotypes about acceptability of behaviours, interests, and roles for men and women. Within the extensive scientific literature on the multiple dimensions of social exclusion, little attention is paid to the “female-adolescent” binomial aspects of such processes. At EU level there remains a need to create more, dedicated space for single-sex work with young women, especially those experiencing marginalization. Most projects focus on dealing with perceived problematic behaviour and educational deficiencies of young boys, while the remaining limited programming with girls emerges around their perceived potential victimhood, particularly those of early pregnancy, precocious sexuality and low self-esteem. Instead, little interest is given, within generic youth services, to actions focusing on empowerment, exploring gender equity, or interrogating heteronormative gender discourses. In this context, there is also an emerging socio-economic issue that should not be underestimated: the so called ""gender digital divide"", which is often based on the roles that provide the social expectations and shape the male or female use of technology. In already disadvantaged contexts, affordability, lack of education, as well as inherent prejudices and socio-cultural norms further limit girls' ability to benefit from the opportunities offered by digital transformation. Indeed, such disadvantage has been exacerbated by social distancing measures and the disruption of study, work, leisure environments and rhythms caused by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year. Within youth centres, and in tutelage and prevention services, gender-specific initiatives are in many cases overshadowed, if not completely ignored, often as a result of poor funding or absent operational guidelines. Youth workers in particular usually lack up-to-date knowledge and methodologies to deal with specifically “girl issues”, but also to engage in deeper discourses exploring gender equity, autonomy and relationship, sexuality, violence against women, community, culture and identity. Given the complex environment in which the beneficiaries are embedded (usually multicultural or dotted with linguistic barriers), but also given the complexity of the personal experiences of the girls themselves, youth workers should be equipped with proper pedagogical support and educational tools, able to attract their attention, instil confidence, at the same time making them reflect with high motivation.The challenges of youth disadvantage, of the girls who are growing up in our contemporary society, are common to many EU countries, albeit to varying degrees. A vision restricted to local, regional and national realities would entail limitations and would not be able to find suitable solutions to such common issues. In this respect, the partnership recognises the need to adopt a multidimensional, participative and global approach able to bring together the experiences and knowledge of organisations and stakeholders working in different domains of youth disadvantage - from Third Sector organizations, to public authorities responsible of social and youth policies, to educational and training centres - allowing mutual, positive contamination across different countries.<< Objectives >>SPACE4US aims at developing and testing an innovative and integrated model for the individual and collective empowerment of young women, based on blended-experiential learning activities, to foster the social inclusion of girls at risk of marginalisation. It aims to provide youth workers with quality tools and creative methodologies to design and implement such activities, directly involving the target groups through participative and inclusive processes.The first objective of SPACE4US will be to provide a framework as up-to-date as possible of the different contexts that generate inequality and marginalisation of girls: patriarchal families, culturally deprived families, schools unable to cope with bullying, social media, etc.; and specific to different territories across Europe. This project seeks to raise awareness of the problems and challenges they face by giving them a ""voice"" and highlighting their everyday experiences. Hence, the project wants to design and experiment new support strategies to help these girls reach their full potential, through activities, digital tools and spaces tailored to their individual and shared needs. The project aims to find the ""key to collective empowerment"", when bringing together adolescents at risk of exclusion (also with their peers experiencing less hardships) seems to be the first challenge. This challenge also stems from the sometimes conflictual and selective nature of girls of this age (perhaps often determined by the social pressures to which they are exposed), who on many occasions tend to close themselves off in restricted and impermeable groups. The real core of the project is built around this objective: a model capable of ""attracting"", with innovative and stimulating workshops/activities, those girls who tend not to participate in common socialising contexts. This in order to trigger in them a mechanism of trust and interest, which in turn will lead them to continue to attend these spaces - both virtual and real - spontaneously, also in the future.SPACE4US wants in this context to emphasise the ""digital dimension"" of such activities. The aim is to bridge the digital divide that generally affects young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who tend to have less access to technologies than their peers and who, especially during COVID-19, found themselves in a situation of further marginalisation. At the same time it wants to develop in girls greater digital readiness and to foster in them attraction towards STEM-related subjects and sectors, which often, due to protracted gender stereotypes, see much lower female participation.The project also aims at improving the personal and professional skills of the youth workers involved in the project, who often lack proper pedagogical knowledge and methodologies to deal with the most pressing youth issues and more specifically with ""girl issues"". SPACE4US also wants to be a means to increase motivation and satisfaction in their daily work and to boost their opportunities for professional development through the exchange of good practices and training, also by establishing working relationships with other youth workers from different European countries.The action-research approach, which, operating on an international level, interweaves the four different project's results in a mechanism including social investigation, exchange of good practices, development of innovative models, and careful monitoring of the progress and impact of the actions undertaken, aims to make the project a starting point for further research, extended to more European countries, but also and above all for the creation of positive links with institutions involved in defining social and youth policies.<< Implementation >>Starting from M1, on the basis of decisions agreed during TP1, CIES-Iscte will elaborate research instruments and methods for the social survey, which will be carried out in all partner countries from the beginning of M4. Groups of 10 girls identified as “at risk” will be selected among representative beneficiaries of the partner organizations or associated partners (centres for minors, youth associations, social services, schools). 70 stories will be collected which will be emblematic of the complexity of the phenomenon, and representative of its different configurations in the territories covered by the project. These stories will be contextualized through analysis of local contexts and integrated with the voices of other actors involved: educators, social workers, psychologists, operators of youth associations, school teachers. Findings will be analysed and evaluated by CIES-Iscte. In M4 the preparation of R2 will begin, under guidance of Synthesis: the curriculum of blended learning to help youth workers improving their skills in creating and using experiential and digital educational tools.These activities will culminate in TPM2, during which the partnership will share, discuss, integrate:- findings of the social research and the paradigmatic cases outlined- contents produced by each partner in relation to the curriculum for youth workers, including a beta version of the MOOC for distance learning- contents and structure of the first set of activities for the toolkit of experiential learning, to be later designed by each organization, under Breza’s coordination- beta version of the Platform, including general information about the project, and structure of resources which will be gradually integrated during the following 20 months.From M9 lay-out of R2 will start, while preparation of R3 will begin through the selection in all partner countries of at least 20 youth workers and a group of 10 girls. At this stage also the technical preparation/content development of the online quiz will begin.In M12 the JSTE to train the trainers will take place. This moment will mark the beginning of the testing of R2: the course for youth workers. Right after the end of the theoretical course, practical application of learning outcomes will begin, marked by TPM3, corresponding to the implementation of the toolkit of R3 and the testing of the Social Communication Tool of R4. R3 consists of 3 sets of activities of blended-experiential learning covering psychological aspects like self-esteem and confidence, but also exploring concepts like empowerment, conflict-resolution, bullying, or concerning the physical sphere and addressing issues such as active lifestyles, healthy eating, sexuality and affectivity. Other activities will explore concepts like gender equality, career/school choice possibilities and will include learn by doing activities and digital readiness (to explore girls’ attitudes, fears and dreams about STEMs). Monitored through instruments elaborated by CIES-Iscte, this 6-months period perfectly exemplifies the intertwined connection between all 4 results and all 9 partners, in a mutually enriching relationshipM20 will mark the end of the testing period and will culminate in an online meeting to discuss fundamental findings and elaborate suggestions for improvements. In M23-24 all materials left to be translated will be finalized. In M24 final versions of the Rs will be disseminated through the MEs, whose preparation will start 6 months before, to assure wide and qualified audience. The day before the ME in Nicosia, all partners will meet to evaluate the project impacts, and decide further common initiatives for the project sustainability, including new EU projects. Nonetheless, dissemination activities will accompany the project throughout its development, to attract the involvement of cross-sectoral groups of relevant actors and to allow the exploitation of the project at local, national and EU level.<< Results >>SPACE4US has been designed to produce a series of complementary and interdependent results:1.The research of R1 will provide an updated framework of the condition of social exclusion affecting vulnerable adolescents in different EU territories, which will pay deliberate attention on gender perspectives towards the issue. Thoughts and experiences of 70 girls will be collected in different stories (in interviews, but also through video-stories and photos – in full respect of privacy conditions). These will allow to identify 4/5 paradigmatic cases, descriptive of the processes preventing the girls’ access to rights, opportunities and resources normally available to members of society, which are key for social integration.An online quiz is also developed and tested, which is intended to be a tool useful to further analyse the needs and potentials of the girls and for a first assessment of the impacts of the activities, but also for this latter beneficiaries’ group discussion and self-reflection2. The ability of youth workers to deal with groups of vulnerable adolescent is improved. They are offered valuable guidelines and tools to develop safe environments in which these girls can socialize, share experiences, reflect upon themselves but also have fun together. A blended curriculum is produced which presents innovative approaches of work and examples of activities. It consists of 4 modules, for both in-presence and distance training, it is tested in 7 partner countries involving:•70 youth workers for the in-presence course, and 70 youth workers attending the MOOC;•14 youth workers will concretely apply the notions learned, during a period of 6 months, by implementing the workshops of R3 with 7 groups of girls3. An innovative model for the empowerment of young women is elaborated and tested, including blended-experiential learning activities aimed at fostering the social integration and personal well-being of the girls, both under the psychological point of view, and improving their digital and practical skills (experiences of “circle time”, flash mobs, theatre, woodcraft workshops, introduction to online game programming). A toolkit is developed consisting of 3 sets of workshops. These latter are designed and implemented following a virtuous circle of creative continuous enrichment among the girls and youth workers of partner countries. Such dynamic also ensures the ongoing improvement in the production of the tools and resources of the project. The activities will help girls to examine themselves, learn to face challenges, learn through experience, take risks, and get involved, overall leading to higher resilience when dealing with societal pressures. It is through this kaleidoscopic perspective of empowerment that SPACE4US aspires to have long-term impacts on their (future) socio-economic conditions, so that they might become agents of change in their context, generating economic, professional benefits, social and environmental for themselves and for the members of their community4. An international network of youth and social workers, educators, and professionals who directly or indirectly engage with girls at risk of social exclusion is created. They will interact and exchange practices, ideas for the management of common challenges on a national and EU level. In this sense the Platform will work as a virtual space (through the Social Communication Tool) in which it will be possible to find materials and resources. The tool is then extended to the girls themselves, becoming an online safe environment in which they can interact, share experiences and find adviceDissemination activities are expected to produce sensible impacts, mainly because they will be directly addressed to “insiders”, policy-makers and the social community. Thanks to such actions, the project ensures the involvement and outreach of important stakeholders at EU, national and local level, as well as the active engagement of the community."

<< Objectives >>Raise awareness about environmental challenges and climate-change among youth.Inform, involve and educate youth in the topic of sustainability in our daily lives by providing them a resource and tool.Empower young people to take action, stimulate their active participation and generate change by inspiring others to make changes in their everyday behavior through Green Challenges, information related with more conscious and sustainable way of living and awareness raising campaigns.<< Implementation >>1. Transnational - kick off - meeting2. Collecting good practices3. Youth meeting4. Transnational meeting: midterm (virtual) meeting5. World Environmental Week6. Development of Green Compass7. Transnational meeting: Final conference8. Dissemination distribution and multiplication of the project results9. Project management and coordination activities10. Visibility activities<< Results >>The project will be raising awareness about sustainable living and environmental protection among youth through Green Compass Tool, its 3 green city maps and Green Challenges; encouraging youth, youth organisations and society in general to take active participation in activities that contribute to the preservation of ecology and the environment. We, as organisations working with youth are ambitious to take actions to help youth to implement environmental and sustainable life-style initiatives

<< Objectives >>We want to develop a course program that will support young people, satisfy their need for education through non-formal methods, increase their confidence in their own strengths and stimulate their creativity, openness to the opportunities that may come their way. We will develop the offer of non-formal education programs to identify and value the skills of young people between the ages of 13 and 18 from Focsani, Kaunas and neighboring towns, targeting also young people with limited opportunitie<< Implementation >>Maintaining a positive attitude uncovers hidden abilities and calls upon untapped resources.It frames the conditions necessary to make the best use of talents to offer new perspectives to set goals with confidence and to overcome reluctance to try new things.Our project aims to make the transition from middle school to high school easier for students and help them discover what kind of professions they could embrace after completing their courses and how they could find their best place to work<< Results >>The results of the project are in several directions, first of all, the non-formal education program that will develop them skills in identifying and valorizing skills, in order to choose the most suitable educational path We will work with a group of 15 young people from Romania and 15 young people from Lithuania, whom we will support in developing the skills targeted by the program described above. The young people will complete with us the personalized map of their educational path.