A lot has changed over the last decade around both attitudes/perception of refugees and continuing support of multiculturalism and diversity. Populism in Europe and beyond and the rise of extremist parties in many European countries is not helping this debate where xenophobia and far of the ‘other’ is increasing. A better understanding of other cultures and more initiatives to foster intercultural education become now more relevant than before. ‘Signs’ goes North project creates an innovative model to promote cultural diversity and social inclusion. The project is based on the highly successful Signs in the City methodology for obtaining basic language, communication and intercultural skills by exploring city’s signs signs and symbols (street signs, bar, restaurant, shop, banks, post office, graffiti and anything else ‘printed' as part of a city). ’Signs’ Goes North extended this methodology with innovative features matching the urgent needs of refugees and newly arrived migrants to understand the place, the language and culture in the host country, and transferred it to the important context of migrants and refugees integration in Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland and Denmark. Project objectives focused on:• providing refugees and newly arrived migrants with the means to adapt to a place of arrival easily and effectively, help them socialise and express themselves;• providing creative mutual learning experience for newcomers and natives, fostering respect and understanding for diversity, intercultural competencies and values;• developing effectively model for the inclusion of newcomers at the municipal level;• remove barriers to integration and promote equality of opportunity.’Signs’ Goes North project developed methods and material to support emerging linguistic, communication and cultural need of refugees and newly arrived migrants, providing tailored solutions for their early integration. Project approach compromised a needs analysis: focusing on target groups need in terms of better cultural integration, a communicative competence model: embedding the target groups in the development of the products, and mentoring and peer support: partnership and community learning using the expertise of experienced partners. This approach covers the different perspectives of migrants’ integration process, and turned into a prerequisite for immediate testing and implementation¨ and future sustainability.’Signs’ Goes North developed and piloted a practical learning model “Feel the city - share the feeling”, where newly arrived migrants/refugees, long-term migrants, staff of supporting organisations and native citizens worked together locally to defining specific needs, selecting places of interest and linguistic and cultural themes in their cities, were co-creators of content and material (working in partnership with partners and experts). The model allows the newcomers to understand the local culture better and to obtain skills in team work with local comunities and natives; on the other hand, the original population understands who the refugees are, and how to include them in mutual activities.While bidging digital art and storytelling and educational content the project developed:City and Language books - “Signs i Bollnäs och Söderhamn”, “Signs in Rotterdam”, “Signs in Reykjavik”, “Vis os Vejle/Signs in Vejle” - with visual and linguistic content for the hosting cities and languages, containing photography of city signs and related survival vocabulary, language and culture guidelines and facts, communicational tips;Digital Stories of cities and migrants - 8 short films telling the stories of 23 migrants, who already experienced the integration process in Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark and Iceland, presenting a community of many cultures within the host city and migrants’ own voice and vision;Digital learning resource - freely accessible, multidevice digital versions of the books, incl. audio pronouncation and translation into English.Project ouputs influenced the integration by involving migrants in practical inclusive activities together with local citizens and stakeholders, that were integral part of the development of the products - selection of linguistic and cultural content, local workshops, filming, content development and testing, informational and awareness-raising activities, etc. Thus, migrants were provided with competences to integrate in the local society during the project life. Project activities have been implemented by a consortium of 7 partners from 6 European countries (SE, NL, DK, IS, RO, UK) all having significant and complementary expertise in development and promotion of high quality outputs and their mainstreaming in the partner countries and beyond.

Traditionally the term ‘heritage’ is used to describe a people’s language, culture or architecture in a historic way. More current definitions of heritage focus rather on contemporary society in terms of what people have in common, promoting the values of diversity, civic participation and intercultural understanding. A city’s heritage is no longer a set of buildings, archeological sites or statues of people showcasing historic facts but also a set of values that promote civic engagement and participation, openness to society and critical thinking. The development of civic competences - knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that enable an individual to actively participate in the society – is a prerequisite for the active, democratic and civic engagement of people in their societies. Education in ‘values’ helps to build our civic heritage -inclusive societies on the shared values of democracy, tolerance and freedom by strengthening solidarity and local communities.The Covid-19 pandemic is already changing the way people are engaging with each other and how they are supporting their local communities and national initiatives. Activities related to civic engagement have become stronger than ever during this pandemic, getting people closer together during a time of extreme physical isolation. From informal local and small initiatives such as helping vulnerable neighbours during the pandemic, to large scale national programmes of volunteering to support health service or food production, all citizens have a role to play. We have also noted during this period, unprecedented support for a European action and involvement of citizens to support at European level. As we are still in the early days of this pandemic and these new ways of working, we will monitor how people’s civic engagement will progress. There will be a lot of mourning and reflection at the end of this crisis, but also quite a lot to celebrate on. Civic engagement is bound to be a success story. The project Our Civic Heritage seeks to promote European common values and civic education and engagement in Europe. It addresses three types of target groups: members of the public that are interested in civic participation activities, educators that teach civic participation and cultural heritage, and policy makers and those working in the cultural heritage and civic sector whether in a public or private capacity. The project’s aim is the promotion of European civic identity and engagement through the following specific objectives:- Enabling intercultural understanding- Promoting European cultural diversity- Embracing the common European values of openness, civic engagement, critical thinking, human rights- Increasing civic capacity training initiatives- Strengthening digital literacy and enabling digital engagement - Strengthening digital European citizenship actions The project will apply a comprehensive approach that includes provision for civic education with an intercultural dialogue to strengthen the civic participation capacity, digital, social, intercultural competences and critical thinking of adult citizens of diverse background and generations. It will provide educators with clear methodological guidance regarding civic heritage, authentic teaching resources and good practice examples.‘Our Civic Heritage’ builds its methodology on experiences of 10 partner organisations in citizenship education, training and promotion of European values, history and culture, and will produce and disseminate at EU level intellectual outputs that will significantly contribute to the innovation of the adult education sector in the 8 partner countries and beyond.The project creates easily adaptable and transferable outputs - digital library with study cases of civic engagement initiatives in action, civic heritage methodology, digital impact stories, training kit to digital civic actions, curriculum for civic skills development and actions with high potential of adapting to different learning styles and transferability to other countries and environments. A total of 200 targeted citizens/adults will benefit of the pilot activities: workshops and local civic events; 160 target groups representatives and stakeholders will be involved in civic engagement initiatives identification; 8 target group actors will share their impact stories; 16 adult educators will be directly involved in the validation process of outcomes. Project results will directly reach at least 800 persons (citizens, adult educators, stakeholders) via project activities, multiplier events, creating a strong base for long term exploitation.In long term, the awareness and development of civic skills and civic capacity will influence directly the social, cultural and environmental welfare in the regions involved and the project educational products and practical civic actions will contribute to the integration of European values and civic skills training into European curricula.

"The aim of the project “ Opposing Force: How to combat the on-going drain of young adults in rural areas” was a joint development of tools for lifelong learning.Our project was based on the research that emerged amongst youth in Söderhamn, Sweden, carried out by Ms.Lotta Svensson, PhD in Sociology at the University of Uppsala and at R&D Söderhamn. http://www.soderhamn.se/lottasvenssonhttp://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:21857Background:In the transition between school and working life all young people are facing difficult decision making about their own future. For many of the young people in the rural areas there is an additional component to ponder, namely the question if they should stay where they are or move. These kinds of decisions play an important roll for the individual, but also for the the regions where these young people were raised, but later in many cases move away from.The migration of young people from more or less all small municipalities to big cities is a major concern. Civic leaders fear population decline and worry that shrinking demographics and smaller tax bases may impact local welfare. Business people are concerned over a potential shortage of competent workers. In addition, what happens to the expectations and hopes of the future in an area that young people are moving away from?The norm – which says that young people who wish to gather symbolic capital and be perceived as modern and youthful, ought to move to urban areas is highly general. In addition, it seems that the feeling of not being wanted or needed in the municipality of origin is widespread among the ones who have no desire to leave or relocate, which are the ones with parents without a higher level education. The preconceived notion that “young people with ambitions want to move” often leads the adults to the conclusion that young people are not interested in working with local development.This leads to that young working class people living in the rural areas face contradicting messages; on the one hand they must and wants to shoulder the future of the region, and on the other they are stigmatised and viewed as passive because it is their wish to do so. The norm and internal logic, which state that those young people who “count for something” are going to want to move, result in the attitude that there is no point in trying to engage young people in local development work. In this way, the municipal civil servants and politicians contribute to an increased individualisation and stigmatisation, which is mainly expressed in working class youth having an insufficient belief in the fact that those with regional power and influence really want them to stay in the region. If young people who stay in the local community do not “count”, they will not perceive themselves as interested in influencing society. In order for resources that are contained in social relationships to become assets to the individual or to the group, the individual must be aware of his or her resources. Even if the need for renewal is acknowledged in our municipalities, the prevailing values reduce the value of young people who show interest in and wish to stay in the region, and they are not seen as renewers of social capital. Young people who express an interest in “taking over” and shouldering the responsibility from previous generations are not seen at all, or are regarded with distrust by many of the surrounding adults, because they are considered to be passive and disengaged. In this way, these young individuals will not experience, or become aware of, the possibility that they could have something to contribute to regional development. Instead, their lack of self- confidence is confirmed, and they continue to see themselves as poor in resources and lacking in influence.Objectives were to:• Improve the access to lifelong learning for young adults: to provide high quality AE by learning centres and facilitate an academic career by the use od distance education. • Encourage and support the young adults to take over already existing small enterprises.• Develop the the use of social media and the opportunity for young adults in rural areas to inspire each other and to increase their influence on local democracy. The partnership included partner organisations from Ireland, Sweden, Romania, Iceland and Finland and consisted of both AE providers and rural action associations with close links to popular education movements.Adult education/training was developed for groups of young adults in each partner country related to the topics and the results are published in an ""Opposing force manual"" aimed to inspire learning centres and AE providers in rural areas to participate in the combat against the on going drain of young adults in rural areas."