"Gender-based discrimination is present in a lot of forms in Europe. About 35% of European youngsters declare that they were discriminated on the basis of their gender (according to the European Youth Forum) and each country presents cultural standards differentiating what women and men can or should do. Furthermore, those who's sex and gender identity do not match are widely unaccepted by society and face constant discrimination and exclusion. Statistics show this is not a localised problem, but a general, international one, with no community being free of its effects, as partners also confirm.In the countries participating in the project 20 to 45% of our youngsters are still perpetuating the same stereotypes on gender, and social pressure and other forms of oppression of women are surprisingly present, with min. 30% of women we address declaring they face these.In the face of these and especially in the Covid-19 crisis we have a limited capacity to intervene as there are limited possibilities to interact in person with young people and the programmes we use were developed for in-person workshops, therefore have limited potential for being transferred to on-line; In this context the project we are presenting aims is to educate young people for embracing gender equality. It proposes a radical shift in how anti-bias education is offered to EU nationals, by switching from the traditional lectures or in-person ""trainer to trainee"" approach to peer-lead on-line workshops that use drama and digital tools as base for experiential learning. This innovative approach takes advantage of the powerful role drama can have in shaping learning experiences and also of the accessibility and scalability of on-line learning platforms. Together with the peer-lead process, these will increase cognitive load, student engagement and active learning. It also has the advantage of shorter training periods of peer trainers, a more efficient local up-scaling process, having more and long lasting impact, being a more appealing approach and having good potential for a ""viral"" effect of the attitudes we aim to improve.For this, our objectives are to:- increase the capacity of 6 European NGOs to combat gender based discrimination among young people, by creating an effective on-line resource that can facilitate this- reduce at least three manifestation related to gender-based discrimination among at least 100 young people from 3 EU countries during the lifetime of the project, using the programme.The main output of the project will be a training programme that uses on-line experiential learning in a peer-lead learning process. On the medium term, our objective is to offer free access to the peer-to-peer educational solution we will develop and for at least 100 youth-serving organisations to actively use it in the next 5 years, reaching more than 10 000 beneficiaries.The theory of change the project proposes is that by taking part in the educational programme we will develop young people from EU countries will no longer engage in gender-based oppression. Hence, in terms of outcomes, the project aims to bring positive effects to:- young people (typically the ones aged 14 - 30, with a stronger impact on the ones from discriminated genders), by improving their well-being and safety as a result of reducing manifestations related to gender-based oppression in at least 70% of them- youth and youth-serving organisations, by helping them increase their impact in their communities, as a result of putting at their disposal a modern and effective peer education programme on combating gender-based discrimination, comprising in tools and practices that allow them to offer more qualitative and effective activities for their beneficiaries;- young people who wish to be active in their societies, by supporting their active involvement and equipping them with the competencies and tools they need for promoting a positive change in their communities (as a result of their participation as peer trainers in the project).The intended beneficiaries of the programme are young people from Europe and beyond. During the life of the project, more than 150 of them will benefit from it.The programme is aimed to be implemented by networks of young peer trainers (typically 16 to 30), coordinated by youth-serving organisations. In the piloting phase of the programme, 24 young people from 4 countries will be educated to use the programme and to lead peer-to-peer workshops in their communities."

The overall aim of the project is to introduce and enhance an innovative model of learning based on exchanges between Program (Netherlands and Belgium) and Partner Countries (Serbia and Albania), learning mobility and cooperation between youth CSOs and non-formal education providers. This has been achieved through piloting a new Aflateen+ Program for Girls in Serbia and Albania, developed by the Dutch partner and sharing the Belgian experience in mobilising and empowering youth to become peer educators, thus strengthening non formal education in Partner Countries. Piloting the new program for social and financial education of girls in the Balkans has given the Dutch partner data to finalise its program to be used globally. Belgian partner has gained experience in working in the Balkans and this has led to adaptation of the training program in order to include the specific environment in the region.The most important distinctive feature of GIRLACT project has been the synergy of social and entrepreneurial competencies, applying innovative and active pedagogic approaches, including peer training and horizontal learning models. In its implementation, the action has been promoting civic, inter-cultural, social and relational competences, mutual understanding and respect, and ownership of democratic values and fundamental rights, enhancing critical thinking, financial and cyber literacy. Addressing the increasing diversity of learners and access to good quality inclusive mainstream education and training for all, including girls, while tackling discrimination, bullying, violence and stereotypes was the basis for promotion of active citizenship in learning. Introducing and strengthening financial literacy, entrepreneurial skills, planning, saving, investing and budgeting enabled both young people and youth workers to make much more feasible and realistic plans for their actions. This made the action unique in its effort to promote/implement integrative peer learning model for supporting individual entrepreneurial initiatives with increased awareness of their social impact on the community and society. The specific objectives to: 1. Design relevant innovative and flexible models of learning aimed at acquiring/improving employability skills of young people, especially girls; 2. Raise capacities of youth CSOs and provide them with tools necessary for delivery of a new form of training based on non-formal flexible learning methods, learning mobility, virtual cooperation and OER; 3. Launch, test and implement new practical training schemes based on learning mobility aimed at improving participants' level of competences and fostering their active participation in society; and 4. Strengthen the influence of youth CSOs in advocating for validation and recognition of competences acquired through non-formal learning, have all been met. The main activities held were:1. Development of the analysis of the gaps in social and financial education of young people in Albania and Serbia2. Development of the toolkit for social and financial education of young people, especially girls in Albania and Serbia3. Development of the curriculum for peer training in Albania and Serbia4. Development of the online training material 5. 6-day information sharing training sessions on the material developed in Albania and Serbia6. Local 3-day training sessions in Albania and Serbia7. Advocacy round-tables in Albania and Serbia 8. Development of the recommendations for the policies and practices in youth education 9. Development of the evaluation of the impact of the training programmes and learning models for Albania and Serbia10. Youth Workers' study visits to the Netherlands and Belgium11. Youth exchange visits to Serbia and Albania12. Final Conference

The school dropout and more precisely the one concerning the 17 to 22 year old population is a real problem for Europe but goes far beyond European borders. Every people is convinced that this problem must be considered as a priority within the European Union. This item is anyway an important part of the Europe 2020 Strategy.2 main objectives are settled:-Reduce the dropout rate in Europe-Increase the youth employability rate and especially for young people facing dropout.Remotivation, orientation linked with recruting economical sectors , training which includes abroad stayings will be important and innovative activities which will be settled in this project in France and in partners countries :Luxemburg, Belgium and italy In each countries, partners from formal or non formal education , from professional trainings, from business, and public authorities will have the opportunity to collaborate. Everyone will be able to put its capacities et expertises to help young people from 17 to 22 to face dropout. It is one of the innovative aspect of the project : profesionnals who used to work separatly will have to work all together ! Those 4 partners countries are facing the same problem with dropout : France, Luxemburg, Belgium and italyThey are all different but they will work on a complementary way for the benefit of young high schoolers: Régional Council Haut de France / ARML (AREFIE) réseau des missions locales. Rectorat. ID6, 4MOTION in Luxembourg, AMORELIANCE aide à la jeunesse and EPTO in Belgium, TEMPO LIBERO in Italy. The making of a testing group (120 young droping out learners) from 4 different countries , with an A level will be selected inside their schools, or vocational high schools , associations, …They will be accompanied together by teachers, accounsellers, training organizations, experts, business supports, and will have to through out several steps before they ‘ll be eventually hired.The first step will be the making of a group test thanks to a toolbox called « scenaribox » which includes :-remotivation tools-Orientation tools- support tools for young people entering business firms - tools for the capitalization of obtained skills The second step will drive people towards selected trainings , in economical sectors which are at the moment recruting. This step will be settled with the help of training organizations and economical partners in environmental, numerical, and hotel restaurant fieldsThe third phase will allow young dropout people to be trained and educated within training organizations and to go away for a professional training period abroad (from 2 to 3 months long)The last step will be a long training period abroad (6 months long) in our partner business branch. The young trainer will be followed after hiring for 6 months just to be sure everything is all right for him and for the business partnerThis project goes on well with all the actions and activities which were previously settled down by our partners for striking dropout. All those actions will absolutely be complementary and will strengthen the links between the european partners and professionals . Furthermore European mobility projects will bring a special touch to it.Everything will be possible for young people as long as we try to make out realistic projects for them, and as long as we recognize their transversal skills The aim of the project is to suggest a new model of educational course which develop a new approach for dropout problems. The dissemination of the results will be on local, régional, national, european , and why not, on international levels !!The objectives of the project will be :Objective 1 : to build up specific courses on the benefit of young dropout students. It will also give answers for business partners which are on recruting fields but find it hard to recrute appropriate trained employeesObjective 2 : to break down the system and allow people from education or non formal education, associations, profesional traings to work together. The new course will be an incentive for young people to learn appropriate and efficient knowhow which will lead to a real and permanent job . Objective 3 : to disseminate the results in a way to be sure that the new created tools will be properly and definitely be used by or on the benefit of the beneficiaries.

"<< Background >>Young people with disabilities often experience rejection and seclusion due to peers’ misconceptions&prejudices (aka ableism). Loneliness and isolation are reinforced by activities and spaces that are inaccessible to them. According to the ""Disability and Social Exclusion in the European Union"" study, persons with disabilities find themselves excluded from most of the social, leisure and cultural activities. Also, according to Eurobarometer on attitudes of Europeans towards disability, this target group is often confronted with barriers in accessing services, which are not designed as to ensure access of persons with disabilities. In a most of the EU27 countries the participation rate to non-formal activities of persons with disabilities is less than half the one of the ones with typical development (Eurostat) with countries like Romania, Bulgaria or Greece severely underperforming in this indicator.The most prevalent causes for there are the attitudes and prejudice of the general population but also a lack of knowledge about the realities in which the persons with disabilities live and a lack of skills for involving them.Furthermore, in the partners' local context 90% of the youth NGOs do not provide accessible services for them, just 2 to 4% of youngsters with impairments are participating in activities conducted by a youth NGO and close to 90% of the youngsters with disabilities feel excluded. One cause we identified is that youth org. face limited know-how, both on making their activities accessible to the target group and also on promoting inclusion among young people. Therefore they are hesitant and do not adapt their activities, nor do they promote inclusion locally. Resources for this are very limited and unadapted to current needs.While we are already using a programme on combating exclusion of persons with visual impairments and it does show effectiveness, the SWOT Analysis on the existing Peers for Integration programme conducted by involving over 18 NGOs revealed the following weaknesses:- it needs to be expanded to cover more types of disability (it covers just visual disability)- in-person workshops are very effective but time and resource consuming, so they limit the speed of the up-scaling- peer trainers have limited availability for being trained and it is difficult to find a common interval when all were available to be trained- difficulties in getting resources to ensure the accommodation and trainers costs for the whole duration of the two pieces of training in which the peer trainers should participateFurthermore, our impact assessment on over 100 beneficiaries of the initial P4I programme has revealed that persons with disabilities who have been involved in various activities as its follow-up declared that these experiences contributed a lot on their personal and social development, increased their self esteem and improved their overall wellbeing, as they:- were offered the chance to further develop personally and socially, to be included in new and various activities, - met new and different people who do not belong to their family or their immediate social circle, - exercised responsibility or took on leadership roles. - were seen as equal members of the group their were working with, which is not very common in their regular interactionsHence, a programme that facilitates their involvement in socio-educational activities will be very beneficial in responding to their need<< Objectives >>Our aim is to increase the social inclusion of youngsters with disabilities through peer-lead on-line workshops that use digital tools as base for experiential learning. For this, we plan to develop an improved programme for combating discrimination of young people with disabilities that addresses the above needs, weaknesses and threats. The most feasible solution we identified was to make an online learning platform that would allow organisations to deliver such workshops using digital tools. Still, the experiential learning process we typically use cannot be simply adapted to on-line and needs a significantly different approach. Hence, by including the unique expertise of partners we drafted the plan for a solution that uses dedicated methods for the on-line experiential learning process, which will be blended with our typical peer to peer approach.Consequently, by the end of the project, our objectives are to:O1. Develop a dedicated on-line resource & learning platform that EU organisations can use to make their act. more accessible and combat ableism among young peopleO2. Create the capacity to include y.p. with disabilities in their socio-educational activities for at least 24 youth and youth serving organisationsO3. Increase the participation in youth work activities for youngsters with disabilities by at least 50 pers.O4. Combat manifestations of ableism among local y.p. in at least 360 per<< Implementation >>A1. PREPARATION ACTIVITIES (1st - 2nd month)Content of these is presented in the relevant sections of the application.A2.1. RESEARCH ACTIVITIES/NEEDS ANALYSIS (3rd to 8th month) & A2.2.DEVELOPING THE T-KIT (8th to 13th month)The process will follow the next steps:a. Training needs assessmentb. Creating/identifying the digital learning methods/developing the online learning platformc. Defining the evaluation methodologyFor assessing the training needs, partners will work with experts in the field and other stakeholders and will identify the most appropriate content to be included in the on-line tool-box. Also, as not all partners working on the platform have a uniform understanding of the pedagogical approach used in peer-to-peer and experiential education, but also to establish a space for co-creation of the learning experiences we need, two persons from each partner will attend specific training on the topic in October 2022 (in C1). During this mobility, the first 3 days will be allocated for a Thematic Awareness Training on the topic of anti-bias experiential learning, while the last 4 days will be used for creative activities aimed at identifying potential ways in which a similar format can be transferred in the on-line environment using custom made learning experiences.Using this experience and based on the needs assessment, 2 experts from each partner will be involved and will contribute the content of the online toolbox that is in line with their expertise. The aim of this activity is to develop transferable, cross-sectorial, tools and instruments that are accessible enough to be used by organisations and youth workers to develop inclusive activities and promote inclusion in their local environment. A3. PILOTING THE TRAINING METHODOLOGY IN LOCAL IMPLEMENTATIONS (14th to 21st month)For testing the effectiveness of the programme, we will create:- a network of 24 peer-trainers from GR, BG, RO and SI (6 from each country), who will be empowered to organise, in teams of 2 persons, two workshops with an impact at a local level for promoting social inclusion of persons with disabilities among 360 young people - a network of 24 youth workers, who will be empowered to use the expertise developed through the participation in the programme to adapt their organisations' regular activities so that they are also accessible to at least 50 young people with disabilities.The members of these two networks will be trained to use the programme in a short term joint staff training (C2). Following their participation:- peer trainers are expected to organise at least two anti-bias workshops at local level, involving 10 - 15 participants, lasting for at least 8 sessions (aprox. 15 working hours)- youth-workers are expected to organise at least two inclusive activities, involving min 2 participant with disabilities20 of them will later be part of a Peers to Pro mobility in Greece (C3) during which they will develop their trainings skills so that following the project they can become multipliers of the programme, teaching others how to use the programmeThe working methods will be chosen according to the T-Kit’s methodology and to the foreseen action plan. Each workshop will have an important non-formal component.Each participant will receive on-site support and coaching from the trainers of the partners.A4. DEVELOPING THE PROJECT PLATFORM (2nd to 22nd month)A5. COMMUNICATION, MONITORING, DISSEMINATION, EVALUATION, FOLLOW-UP (1st to 24th month)<< Results >>The theory of change the project proposes is that by taking part in the educational program we will develop:- young people from EU countries will no longer discriminate based on disability - youth organisation will be more inclusive.Hence, in terms of outcomes, the project aims to bring positive effects to:- young people (typically the ones aged 14 - 30, with a stronger impact on the ones facing disability), by improving their well-being and inclusion as a result of reducing manifestations related to ableism in at least 70% of them- youth and youth-serving organisations, by helping them increase their impact in their communities, as a result of putting at their disposal a modern and effective peer education programme on combating discrimination based on disability.- young people who wish to be active in their societies, by supporting their active involvement and equipping them with the competencies and tools they need for promoting a positive change in their communities (by participating as peer trainers in the project)During the lifetime of the project, through local workshops that use the program methods, we aim to achieve these positive outcomes for at least 360 young people from RO, GR, BG and SI (70% of total), at least 24 youth and youth serving organisations involved, and 24 peer trainers volunteering for the partners. As a direct result of the activities of the project, we aim to foster the inclusion of at least 50 young people with disabilities in specific socio-educational activities organised by 24 youth workers we will train, part of the programme piloting phase.In terms of outputs, we aim at developing a non-formal, peer-to-peer training program that uses digital tools as a base for experiential learning for:1. combating ableism among young people, 2. supporting inclusion of y.p. with disabilities in socio-educational act. of youth NGOsThis has the advantage are of easier scalability and being a greener solution, by reducing the need for in-person workshops.Still, shifting the learning process that is typically done in in-person workshops to an on-line solution is definitely not an easy task and we have not met any effective implementations of such an approach. Our SWOT analysis on 7 existing programmes identified weaknesses and threats to such an approach that should be properly addressed, like:- the group dynamics, which plays a major role in the pedagogy of anti-bias education programs, are affected by the lack of physical interaction. Creating a safe environment and open interaction between learners can be harder to achieve when they do not actually meet.- Creating online experiences that generate the same learning outcomes as the ones used in the in-person workshops requires a different set of skills, not existing in youth NGOs. This expertise was found in TOP S&S, a company who develops on-line tools to educate people- the reflection and generalisation (debriefing) part of the structured experience, which has a key role in the learning process, cannot be easily done without facilitation from a human peer-trainerBased on these realities, the main output of the project will be a training programme that uses digital tools as a base for experiential learning in a peer-lead learning process, featuring both online and in-person workshops. The program will address the above challenges in an effective way and the learning platform will represent a helpful tool for:- youth workers and peer trainers to facilitate a learning process that fosters a more inclusive behaviour among young people, a more open attitude on working with persons with disabilities, becoming more open and comfortable to work with such persons- youth organisations to become themselves more inclusive and adapt their activities to the specific needs of persons with disabilities.Another result will be 2 multipliers networks consisting of 24 peer trainers and 24 youth workers certified in accesibilisation of youth work."

"In the light of the crisis following the recent flows of asylum seekers from different countries, the EU has decided that promoting peer-education for diversity, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, common values of freedom, tolerance, and respect, should be one of its main priorities. There is a need for a more comprehensive solution and we have decided to join efforts in our common aim of facilitating the integration of refugees into the European environment.During the lifetime of the Peers for Integration project the partners:- an extensive research on barriers standing in the way of young refugees' social inclusion in Belgium, Italy, and Romania.- developed a training methodology using peer education for young refugees and migrants to develop competencies related to self-awareness and cultural identity/ interactions in an inter-cultural environment/ norms, codes, and other cultural elements that may cause ""cultural friction""/ presentation and promotion of different cultures/ dealing with situations in which the individual is witness or victim of prejudice/discrimination/ taking social action/ peer-education- tested and piloted the training methodologies during international learning mobilities to which 32 participants coming from Romania, Italy, and Belgium took part.- organized local workshops in Romania, Belgium, and Itlay during which previously trained participants used the Peers for Integration methodology to further give the opportunity to youngsters to be part of this formative process. A total number of 240 participants took part in the local activities.- organized dissemination events in Romania, Belgium, and Italy face to face as well as online in order to promote the newly created methodology.- developed a platform in order to promote and upload into the public space the newly created methodology and also to serve as a platform where future peer trainers who would like to use the Peers for Integration manual can see through tutorials especially created for them how the methods should be devielvered.Due to a need identified after the covid 19 pandemic shut down all face-to-face activities, we also created the Peers for integration open learning platform in order to give the opportunity to peer educators and trainers to deliver the Peers for Integration methodology in an online format. This gives us the opportunity to reach audiences, communities, and youngsters that were not accessible for the project results.The results we created are accessible on the project platform www.integration.ofetin.ro as well as on the Erasmus+ dissemination platform. The websites and project results are translated into multiple languages in order to respond to local needs and also to avoid language barriers when delivering local workshops."