"""Keeping youth safe from cyberbullying"" CB project created a positive impact on the persons directly or indirectly involved in proposed activities, resulting in the development and implementation of innovative practices at organizational, local, regional, national and European levels, regarding innovative approaches for addressing vulnerable youth, by providing improved practices in fighting against cyber bullying in online environments. In terms of priorities, CB project developed innovative outputs (O1, O2) and engaged into intensive dissemination and exploitation activities (E1-E5) of existing and newly produced products. As horizontal priority CB project addressed inclusive education, training and youth, actions combating discrimination and segregation by tackling cyber bullying.The second priority of the CB project was promoting high-quality youth work, namely supporting youth workers in developing and sharing effective methods in reaching out to marginalizes young people and in preventing racism and intolerance and any other kind of harmful activities that are known as cyber bullying among youth mainly in online environments. Bullying in schools has been around since schools were created and is a phenomenon of human behavior that is sadly familiar even as administrators, teachers and parents strive to eliminate it. The advent of social media has brought with it a new form of bullying, commonly referred to as cyberbullying or ""electronic aggression"", phenomenon that it is proving to be insidious, damaging and can result in irrevocable tragedies, which is why schools and other educational environments are scrambling to find solutions. Incidents of cyberbullying have increased because the use of social networking sites by youth is virtually universal. Cyberbullying causes deep and lasting damage, the exposure of victims is limitless and thus far more damaging. According to psychologists, the damage inflicted by cyberbullying can last into adulthood causing lifelong issues with low self-esteem, risk for addiction and other problems. Many of these incidents are the result of unchecked cyberbullying attacks on vulnerable students.Thus, CB Project aimed to deeper understand the dynamics of cyber bullying in online environments among youth, develop educational resources for professionals involved in youth activities in order to prevent CB type behaviors, develop youth skills to protect themselves from CB and disseminate findings among educational professionals.Specifically, CB project focused on: promoting positive ways of using technology for social interaction, raise youths’ awareness that they have the right and responsibilities to seek help to resolve cyber-bullying incidents, develop the skills required of them to manage youths’ cyber-bullying behaviour, encourage and help youth to positively use technology for social interaction and participate in cyber-bullying professional development opportunities.CB project results were integrative materials addressed to practitioners for preventing and dealing with this type of behaviors, mostly focused on youth population with “less opportunities”: migrants, refugees (Turkey), persons living with intellectual disabilities and cognitive disorders (Romania), persons suffering from some disorders as personality disorders, eating disorders (Belgium), persons at risk of being marginalized, poverty (Spain). These results will be the used as dissemination materials in 4 multiplier events dedicated to 120 youth, one learning activity dedicated to 40 professional staff and an International Conference addressing 80 teachers, educators, youth workers, counsellors, parents and other people interested in this phenomenon.Results were widely made available over the long term on projects page and group. Open access were given to resources we have developed to stakeholders, youth and everybody interested in the field. All partners ensured that projects innovations become integrated into the practice of own organizations and other relevant stakeholders."

Youth empowerment is a process where children and young people are encouraged to take charge of their lives. They do this by addressing their situation and then take action in order to improve their access to resources and transform their consciousness through their beliefs, values, and attitudes. Youth empowerment aims to improve quality of life. Youth empowerment is achieved through participation in youth empowerment programs. However, scholars argue that children’s rights implementation should go beyond learning about formal rights and procedures to give birth to a concrete experience of rights. There are numerous models that youth empowerment programs use that help youth achieve empowerment. A variety of youth empowerment initiatives are underway around the world. These programs can be through non-profit organizations, government organizations, schools, or private organizations.Empowerment should be considered as a process and also a tool and to increase the meaningfulness of the empowerment work with changes in power relations is highly needed. Thus, empowering the agency will not only affect if the relevant structures in the power relations which are still continuing to be available in the society. Considering power structure as an iceberg that has visible and invisible sides, visible sides indicate the formal parts of power as institutions, authorities, laws, and rules and invisible sides indicate the informal pars of power as socialized norms, discourses, and cultural practices. Empowerment work deals with that iceberg and deconstructs and equips individuals to deal with visible and invisible power groups. Considering the youth as an experience and the empowerment as a tool for increasing the capacities of young people and make them able to act and participate and considering youth workers participation to that process and increasing the capacities of youth workers in that field of work would increase the participation of young people and creation of strategies in this field has importance to promote participation and inclusion of young people in economical, social and political life. The project aimed to strengthen the competence of young people to increase. their participation through using empowerment strategies in their daily lives. An objective of the project was for volunteers from Turkey and Europe to work side by side with people directly affected by poverty in Africa. As a collaborative group of local and international activists, our volunteers rised to the challenge of poverty and helped the development of the youth in Uganda through volunteering activities. Besides that, the Ugandan youth participated in Actions held in Turkey and Uganda and it increased the understanding of poverty among young people and its implications. Through the project, the capacities of youth workers from participating countries concerning the empowerment strategies and usage of empowerment tools in their daily work. On the other hand, the Ugandan partners capacity is increased relatively due to implemented activities by the volunteers during their stay.The project consisted of European Voluntary Service in Kampala, Uganda for 3 months for 24 young people coming from Spain, Turkey and Romania, Youth Exchange for 24 people in Turkey with participants from Turkey, Uganda, Spain and Romania. As a complimentary activity, training activity with 20 people coming from Turkey, Uganda, Spain and Romania will which took place in Kampala,Uganda.

As stated in the application, this project was created to better understand how hate narratives spread through traditional and social media, among other channels; and to design strategies to resist them. In the world of instant communication, we found the need to educate ourselves further as youth workers so we could create a fitting environment for our youth to be able to identify and act against hate narratives.Though we faced many challengues due to the COVID 19 pandemic, our work ethic, our flexibility and our experience with digital youth work allowed us to overcome the problems and create a meaningful and succesful project. We were able to meet all of our goals and a number of extra, high quality outcomes were produced within this projectThe objectives set for this projects were:-To improve the competences of youth workers on the topic of radicalisation, inclusion and empowerment-To promote empowerment of young people with fewer opportunities throughout carrying researches to create needs and interest based empowerment models for youth workers to practice related to hate narratives and radicalisation-To raise awareness on youth workers about hate narratives, radicalisation and empowerment and its implications in youth work-To create innovative empowerment models for the inclusion of young people and create educational material and theoretical framework on social, economical and cultural empowerment-To understand the challenges on inclusion in participating countries and address those challenges through upskilling youth workers on empowerment with the goal of combatting hate narrative and ability to make informed decisions-To qualify youth workers as multipliers and trainers in the field of youth to develop new empowerment models and implement trainings to empower the young peopleThe beneficiaries of this project have been both youth workers and young people. In this project we involved youth professionals and educators from youth organisations as well as formal and non formal education entities, moreover, due to the partner organisations profile, we were able to reach a large number of youth workers from a variety of fields: we've had participants with experience working with migrants, NEETS, refugees, minorities and youngsters with fewer opportunities.As the project developed, several actions and activities were planned and executed involving young people from our local communities. Since the pandemic we've observed a particularly worrying rise of hate speech, not only online (where it grew exponentially), but also in the traditional media, signalling how deep the hate narratives have implanted themselves in our day to day; and as a result of this, several actions were put in motion, such as the Let's Talk project, a dialogue based activity open to youngsters from all around the world interested in sharing opinions and ideas about intercultural awareness, mental health, communication an media, and more. This project was created as a space to allow youngsters to connect during the hardest months of the confinement and find common ground.Our digital magazine, Youth Work Today, our network for youth workers, the Education Umbrella Network; as well as our two Cross-Sectoral Transnational Exchange Projects CSTEPs (view results section in the Beneficiary Project Details page); are also examples of initiatives that have been heavily influenced by this project. We are now more aware than ever that, to be able to put up a fight against hate speech, we need to be able to learn from each other, focus on our similarities and have a space to share ideas and create common goals.Indirectly, we planned to reach the local communities of the partner organisations, as well as local media, institutions and entrepreneurs. Due to the pandemic, we weren't able to have a physical presence in each community, however, because we had to move our actions online, we took advantage of the possibility to widen our reach and allow our influence to move beyond our partnership and all across Europe.Through this project we've established meaningful and lasting relationships with other youth workers, we are now more aware of hate narratives and have a variety of tools, materials and experiences to withstand its growing tendency.

CONTEXTIntercultural Competence for Youth workers (ICY) was an exchange of practices project focusing on developing youth workers' intercultural competence in order to improve social inclusion in their groups. The four culturally different partners (YMCA Helsinki, ACSESO from Spain, Changemakerz from the Netherlands, and City Pirates from Belgium) use physical education as a tool for social inclusion. They started the project to learn from each other to gain best practices in leading youth groups towards cultural awareness. As all the partner organizations know, sports and physical education can be among the best tools to integrate people from different backgrounds.The ability to create bonds with teammates from very different cultural, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds is instrumental in building empathy and understanding of people from different backgrounds. However, we also know that sport can be a place for racism, intolerance, and discrimination. That same game that is supposed to create positive feelings and inclusion can cause long lasting scars to young people. Research shows that multicultural groups can either be very highly effective or the least effective, and the difference is in how well they are managed. Directing groups towards acceptance of diversity starts with the team leader’s understanding of their own prejudices, stereotypes, and values that affect the way they interact with people from other cultures. This is more often overlooked in preference to the multitude of ready-made material on how to run groups. This was the challenge ICY wanted to tackle! OBJECTIVESICY's goal was to facilitate social inclusion in diverse teams, and increase the cultural competence of the instructors and their organizations. This was accomplished by predisposing the partners to different ways of encountering people and leading the group. Cultural competence is a lifelong journey that requires self-reflection skills. All participants and partner organizations were challenged to reflect on their own values and cultural expectations. Partners conducted five job shadowing visits to observe these different methods to be later tested in their own groups. At the end of the project, these were compiled into one document and translated to several languages. The aim was to promote intercultural dialogue between youth work professionals around Europe and strengthen the knowledge and acceptance of diversity in the participating instructor’s youth groups. PARTICIPANTSEach of the four partner organizations were chosen as they use physical education or sports as a tool for integration. However, choosing only one specific type of youth work organization would have made the exchange of methods and practices too narrow. Hence ICY had a variety of different organizations: HNMKY (YMCA Helsinki) providing before and after-school activities, basketball, and summer camps in Finland, ACSESO providing non-formal education and youth programs in Spain, Changemakerz arranging non-formal educational opportunities for the youth in the Netherlands and City Pirates offering youth football in deprived urban areas in Belgium. This variety gave us new perspective into leading different types of youth groups. Additionally, ACSESO has a strong youth-run media team who supported the project in communication and media contacts. Each of the four organizations sent instructors to Job Shadowing Events to observe other project partners’ ways of using sports as tool for social inclusion and methods to develop their instructors’ intercultural competence. RESULTS ICY accomplished all their goals. There was a significant increase in the cultural competence of the trainers measured in IDI intercultural development inventory. This measuring tool proved that being exposed to new ways of leading groups, new methods, and frequent self-reflection, our perception of ourselves and our own cultural competence becomes more realistic. One main finding was that the gap between our imagined competence and our actual competence can be bridged by working on this skill. By observing other instructors and sharing experiences, instructors' cultural knowledge level, cultural awareness and intercultural competence increased. At the end of the project, all methods and exchanged practices were tested, improved and collected into one ICY Toolkit. This material can be found online in English, Dutch, Finnish, French and Spanish. The significance of these results come from the validated tools used in the selection process of the participating organisations and measuring of its effectiveness. However, the most significant result is the group of instructors that have both learned methods for guiding their diverse youth groups and increased their own intercultural competence. The results of this project will have a long term benefit to organisations that use sport as a tool for inclusion.

An increasing number of experts believe that mankind is about to be confronted with a radical change of economic and social way of life. These changes will be driven by the accelerated development of technologies. Klaus Martin Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, made a comprehensive reference to the idea of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in his speech in Davos on 20 January 2016. According to Schwab, we are soon to see changes of the scale and complexity unknown to mankind. In a long-term perspective the new technological transition may lead to a revolutionary breakthrough in labour efficiency and economical development. However, in a short-term perspective it may cause a substantial imbalance in the world economy, thereby aggravating inequality and encouraging the risk of global structured unemployment. As the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic was even not foreseen within our project, although, it showed us that the need behind the virtual collaboration and efficiency tools for the youth organization is highly relevant in the field of youth. As the consortium members, we become the one pioneering organization for the organisations in the youth field during the pandemic due to our experience concerning the virtual tools and implementation of virtual activities during the pre-pandemic period. As we have explained in the project application stage, the change foreseen by Schwab was happened and our project became more relevant. Furthermore, as consortium members this experience give us an opportunity to implement our activities in a profound manner. Due to the times we are going through, the very approach to youth work, and the organisation of youth organisations has been changed and almost all youth organisations are already feeling the change. Traditional ways of communicating with young people are becoming outdated, unimplementable and they are being replaced with virtual platforms. Youth Exchanges are now reaching many more young people through Erasmus+ Virtual Exchanges, young people from many more backgrounds and situations are now able to access the program without travel and the pandemic gave us an opportunity to explore new ways of virtual collaboration and provide information for the other organizations outside of our consortium which increased the outreach of the project. Objectives of the project : - To explore different existing competence models and platforms to help youth workers to become efficient and effective in today's climate of realities and priorities; - To develop skills of youth organisation to organise effective models for communication, project management, project development, supporting young people online, reaching a wider audience of youth; - To exchange good practices and experience in digitalising our organisations; - To explore together ways how to be prepared for challenges and how to work with limited budgets effectively and efficiently; - To develop a sustainable and effective model of youth work for youth organisations using online cloud based platforms, online communication and social media as tools. - To develop network on international and regional levels. - To develop ways to work virtually to reach more young people, communicate with other organisations more effectively and become more efficient organisations. The target groups that we worked with was youth organisations and youth workers working with young people on daily basis. As a result of the project following outputs were developed : - Online Network - Toolkit of information about tools and processes that may help you to save you time and finances in your organization;- Research about the young people's need in the virtual youth work area - Cross-Border Youth Work Magazine to reach youth workers Within the project, along with the several local workshops implemented in each country, two face to face transnational meetings were implemented in Spain ( April 2019 ) and Slovenia ( September 2019 ), the third transnational meeting was planned to be implemented in Turkey in March 2020 though, due to Covid-19 pandemic, the activity was cancelled. Between March 2020 until the end of the project, we have implemented several online workshops, Erasmus+ partnering fairs and developed a toolkit with the involvement of the partner organizations.