The aim of the YES project was to increase active citizenship in youth by teaching them skills in participating in well-structured and respectful debates that should be the basis of every democratic society.The idea was to create an online tool which is a game-based approach in the form of a deck-building card game that aims to encourage debates about politics and society among youth. Youth may form teams that could consist of school classes or mixed international teams. The system essentially offers an online-environment for holding debates about societal or political issues that uses a gamification approach to encourage young people of different ages to get involved. Therefore, a card-game mechanism that foresees the learners to build teams to play against each other builds the very basis of the system. The main idea is that the teams prepare their own deck of cards with different statements that are appropriate to strengthen or defend one´s own position standing on each of the cards. This makes the whole system highly flexible as there is no limit in the number of teams that are playing against each other nor is it in the number of young people gathering to build a team. Nevertheless, it makes sense to have some kind of basic debate formats which could be the following:(1). One team against another to discuss pros and contras of a certain topic like e.g. nuclear energy.(2). A debate with up to five different teams to simulate an election, but in some kind of split-session. (3). A debate with up to five different teams, each only represented by a single person, related to a selection of pre-determined topics like e.g. in talk-shows or TV debates.The number of players gathered in one team varies, so that there is either a single representative per team or up to ten players that build a team. As the teams are linked online via the system in which they just have to log in, they don´t necessarily need to be in the same location. So theoretically, teams may be consist of youth from different nationalities which encourage language learning as well. Once the players are engaged in a debate, the system is used to support a democratic decision-making process. A poll-system is integrated to choose the argument (the card) that is going to be played. Thus, the objective of the is to encourage productive debates that authentically reflect the ways societal or political debates take place in real life, to foster learning about the discussed topics in mind. Hence, the first step is to prepare the debate. Learners conduct research, they search for background information and facts, and they have to prepare arguments and counter-arguments that are then written down on the cards. This requires the learners to anticipate the argument and counterarguments of the other teams as well which pretty much implies the extent of research necessary to undertake by each of the teams, particularly when playing with more than only two teams. But this also shows that the research process itself and all of its outcomes are highly valuable for the learners.The second step is the debate itself. When thinking of a debate in which a pro- and a contra-team compete against each other; one team starts with an argument and the other team plays a card with a counter-argument that specifically targets the argument that was drawn before. At the end of each round there is public voting. Votes give points for the quality of the elements produced and how well they compare against the other one. This way, we came up with a point system that tells who won the debate at the end of all the rounds.The fact that teams have to anticipate the arguments of the other side means that they will have to look at the debated topics from more than one side in order to be successful. Not only they learn structured, respectful and productive debating skills, they also develop a deep understanding of the topics that they are debating about. The YES-Tool is available for free as an online tool: http://yes-cards.dev-lg.de and it was integrated into other existing platform, the RAISE UP platform that promotes active citizenship. In order to help youth workers, trainers and teachers use it in the education of youth, the YES-Tool is supported by pedagogic materials: https://moocit.de/index.php?title=YES_Mooc_UPB that make using the YES-Tool easy and minimize any extra work. In addition, the results of the research activities on game-based learning in youth work are publish in a convenient handbook: https://goo.gl/JrihnQ that gives youth workers an overview of game-based learning solutions and approaches. In this way, result of the project are inspiring for those active in youth work and fun and effective for the youth experiencing it.

"The E-STAR project is an urgent step that we, youth professionals and education professionals, must take swiftly to prevent the devastating consequences of the latest ongoing changes in European reality: we must address the issue of increasing violence among young people towards their non-native peers and vice versa, educating them to understand and appreciate cultural differences and to learn to live together peacefully, to collaborate, to achieve true integration and to learn to value diversity and, finally, to build together their local communities and their common future in Europe.Thus, the objectives of the E-STAR Project are:- To exchange good practices, challenges and needs on needs on raising the awareness of young people in their fight against racism.- To create tools that make the problem of invisible racism visible, prevent it and promote equal relations based on good treatment...- To recognise new and accepted forms of racism in Europe and to generate joint awareness campaigns against racism, presenting Europe as a multicultural and open place, based on Human Rights. - To create an innovative tool (MOOC - Massive Open Online Course) for the online learning of youth workers regarding the prevention of Invisible Racism and good relations.The expected results of the project are as follows:- A research that will focus on different elements, deepening the situation of young people, especially those most disadvantaged and most likely to find themselves in situations of violence.- A seminar of experts - the seminar of 4 working days and a total of 12 experts in order to share research results, share good practices and methodologies by each of the partner organizations create a common terminology and clearly distinguish concepts and approaches. Therefore, the main outcome of this meeting will be the glossary of terminology, good practices and methods and recommendations for the design period of the MOOC and the Manual.- A MANUAL of the E-STAR project, consisting of a minimum of 100 pages and printed in 5 European languages (English, Hungarian, Italian and Norwegian, in 100 printed copies each.- MOOC: Massive Open Online Course. A MOOC will be created to develop competencies and learn methodologies on intercultural learning and prevention of invisible racism for educators and youth workers working directly with young people. This Mooc will be available in English on Cazalla Intercultural's learning platform www.youth-mooc.eu.- 4 Final conferences: As a final step for the dissemination of the results within the life of the project, 4 conferences (one per country) will be organised, with a duration of one full day, in which a high participation of decision-makers and public authorities is expected, as well as of the education sector and of representatives of the different youth organisations, NGOs (non-formal sector).- 4 Dissemination events for young people: The objective of these events is to make the activities developed in the manual ""Manual on the fight against invisible racism in youth work"" known to youth leaders and other young people, who can test these activities and evaluate their relevance and development.The project will involve youth workers, educators and experts who work or want to work with young people in the future on the issue of invisible racism. Twelve youth workers or educators will participate in the Expert Seminar and a minimum of 100 people are foreseen in the MOOC ""Educating Young People in the Prevention of Invisible Racism"". In addition, some 80 young people are expected to participate in the dissemination events and the final Conferences with more than 120 people, including youth workers, educators, volunteer teachers and politicians.The impact on participants, partner organisations and target groups will be as follows: Acquisition or improvement of skills related to educational activities to combat racism. The participants and partner organizations after the project will deeply understand the concepts of invisible racism and microviolence, and will be equipped with tools such as educational activities with young people. Acquisition or improvement of skills related to awareness-raising and communication activities. The participants and partner organisations after the project will be able to implement quality awareness campaigns, will be equipped with tools, good practices and ideas for the future. Increased motivation and commitment to the fight against racism."

"Internet and new technologies have a central place in our daily lives, so it is necessary to promote the use and access to this digital environment for all citizens. The European Union and the different administrations of the countries that compose it promote the use of ICTs by young people as a means to facilitate their labor inclusion and participation in politics.The main objective of our project is to support and encourage the use of ICT from a gender perspective. The target group we target is the group of female migrant adolescents from countries outside of Europe, in which the difficulties of their situation in terms of access to these technologies are compounded by gender discrimination and different cultural backgrounds.The project will develop different activities such as:• The exchange of good practices among the youth workers of the participating organizations.• The development of a network at European level to facilitate the use of technologies by young migrant adolescent women, integrated not only by project partners but also by other partner organizations.• The training of workers and youth leaders on gender equality in the use of ICTs and in the fight against gender stereotypes that exist in social networks so that they apply this knowledge in their daily work with the project's target group.• The development of a European web portal with all kinds of educational material and guides on the use of ICT for immigrant adolescents with special emphasis on gender equality.A training course will be developed for youth workers, youth leaders and volunteers that will focus on the development of competences on the use of digital technologies by immigrant adolescent women and on good practices in gender equality in access to these technologies. Twenty attendees will participate of the five organizations that form the consortium.These students will inform and sensitize workers and volunteers of other organizations about the conclusions and experiences that will be acquired in the training activity, as well as about the objectives of the project. A total of 200 workers in the field of youth will benefit from this activity.Through the development of the different activities of the project, it is planned to train and support more than 500 female migrant adolescents to use digital technologies as a means of social inclusion. In addition, educational documents and guides on the web portal will provide training and information to a large number of immigrant adolescent women throughout Europe, which will facilitate the use and access to digital technologies without gender differences.To achieve the intended objectives, public bodies, educational institutions and other NGOs will collaborate in the dissemination of the results and in a better approach to the group of immigrant adolescent women.The partnership is formed by five organizations from different countries: INNETICA of Spain, DRUSTVO ZA RAZVIJANJE PROSTOVOLJNEGA DELA NOVO MESTO of Slovenia, TERRAM PACIS of Norway, Associação Sójovem das Saibreiras of Portugal and ""Io, Noi"" of Italy."

<< Background >>For a healthier EU, promoting good health is an integral part of Europe 2020, the EU's 10-year economic-growth strategy. That is, health policy is important to Europe 2020's objectives for smart and inclusive growth because keeping people informed, healthy, and active has a positive impact on the future of the EU. There is growing evidence that health and literacy are closely linked, and thus, influence other parameters such as poverty, inequality, discrimination, power relations, and income levels. Health Literacy is thus a strategy to contribute to the improvement of community’s health, participation, and well-being where health is the basic human right that guarantees people autonomy and responsibility for their own health, and well-being. Despite its immense benefits, health literacy remains a challenge for European public health. Research findings show that more than a third of the EU population face difficulties in finding, understanding, evaluating, and using information to manage their health, especially on sexual and mental health. Though according to WHO, health education interventions have a formative character, since they manage to integrate cognitive and attitudinal processes that allow behaviour modification, and become a conscious, rational and voluntary action. while health literacy refers to the skills and knowledge of individuals necessary to access, understand, evaluate and use health information, enabling them to make health care decisions, disease prevention, and means for healthy living.We seek to create a partnership aiming to strengthen partners’ capacity to develop a youth work that can meet the health literacy needs of our targeted groups by Inclusion and Diversity; using approaches that offer potential for reaching out to and engaging targeted groups. From our previous collaborations, we came to the conclusion that our efforts are falling short on these aspects, and thus fail in meeting the needs of our targeted groups in a long-term perspective. Though our work focused a lot on needs assessment among targeted groups, it left no room for impact measurement to see whether social change is happening or not. To meet those needs, both the consortium and our targeted groups will benefit enormously from applying Impact Pathway, Participatory Action Research, and Human Rights-Based Approaches in the project implementation.Our goal is to place focus on the processes of how Youth Health Literacy Interventions are programmed, designed, and implemented. The partners will meet their needs by strengthening their capacities through research, experiential learning, and sharing good practices on how programming a Youth Health Literacy Intervention must be rights-based; youth and their right to health must be at the centre of such an intervention to delivers more relevant and sustained Intellectual Outputs while ensuring youth ownership of the project results. So, the first stage of the project places emphasis on the purposes of the project’s Intellectual Ouputs by a thorough application of a theory of change and key human rights principles of equal rights, equal opportunities, and non-discrimination by cooperating with youth and youth communities at the local levels.<< Objectives >>The first objective of Youth Health literacy is to contribute to achieving youth’s social, physical, sexual, and mental well-being. That is, at first level the project seeks to strengthen the capacity within the consortium to integrate an Impact Pathway, Participatory Action Research, and Human Rights-Based Approach to formally identify specific type of knowledge, behaviours, attitudes, and skills that contribute to health literacy as means to facilitate youth to achieve an adequate state of social, physical, sexual, and mental well-being. This is an important area of inquiry because it not only helps identify which health literacy tools, habits, and skills that are relevant for youth, but it further reveals: (a). What healthy well-being is, what behaviours lead to it, and what knowledge, skills, and attitudes support those behaviours? And (b). How is health literacy knowledge and awareness translated into healthy behaviours and healthy lifestyles that lead to a greater social, physical, sexual, and mental well-being?Whereas, the second objective of Youth Health literacy is to develop Open Education Resources for youth workers and youth organisations as a means to facilitate youth empowerment to achieve an adequate state of social, physical, sexual, and mental well-being. Hence, the second level of the project seeks to strengthen young people's capacity: (1). Facilitate youth become aware of health problems that may affect them; (2). Facilitate youth in acquiring an understanding of those health problems, their consequences and how they can deal with them; (3). Facilitate youth to acquire the skills needed to address physical, sexual, and mental health problems; (4). Advocate for youth health policy that value systems that include a strong interest in health and motivation to actively participate in protecting and improving the quality of health; and (5). Facilitate youth to develop a sense of responsibility and urgency to ensure that appropriate action is taken to solve sexual and mental health problems. To meet this second objective, the consortium seeks to develop a set of 5 Intellectual Outputs: IO1. Youth health literacy; IO2. Mental health and young people; IO3. Drug abuse and youth well-being; IO4. Gender, Sexuality, Sexual health and hygiene; IO5. Digital-based youth-friendly health services.<< Implementation >>An emphasis is put on an inclusive and diverse participatory process to identify and analyse the health problems of youth belonging to groups that often experience discrimination or inequalities while seeking health services, such as youth with disabilities, LGBTIQ youth, and youth in racial minority groups. Through Participatory Action Research Workshops; youth will learn how to translate their health problems into the human rights language that abides by EU’s Youth Health Policies. Such a participatory approach enables youth to acquire skills that enable them to make appropriate use of health information; be aware of the severity of public health situations; and understand how to protect themselves, and others, through basic actions.After this stage, the partners will start the IOs development work discussed in each Transnational Project Meeting. After each IO is completed, the partner will conduct pilot testing activities with the youth who participate in Participatory Action Research Workshops. Based on feeback from youth and youth workers, the consortium with then start result dissemination and exploitation activities through online campaigns, social medial posts, e-news letters, and short blog.<< Results >>During project implementation:(1). Produce a Youth health literacy manual (IO1) which aims to foster Health Literacy skills, competences and attitudes in the daily life of young people..(2). Produce a mental health and young people manual (IO2) which aims to present strategies for addressing the taboo, stigma, and myths associated with mental health to normalise the conversation around mental health.(3). Produce a drug abuse and youth well-being manual (IO3) which aims to provide interactive educational resources on how to address the problem of drug abuse on youth well-being and healthy lifestyles through youth work.(4). Produce a gender, Sexuality, Sexual health and hygiene manual (IO4) which aims to provide an e-learning resource that will give a broader understanding among the target audience about their sexual health and hygiene.(5). Produce a digital-based youth-friendly health services manual (IO4) which aims to provide interactive e-learning educational resources that will give a broader understanding on the use of health information to counter misinformation and disinformation about health information in the online environment.At the end of the project:- 100 marginalised youths will participate in research workshops.- 15 youth workers complete the short-term staff IOs evaluation workshop.- 50 non-formal educators complete the training on applying IOs in their youth work.- 20 representatives in the education and health field involve in multiplies workshops.- 200 target-group representatives will attend the Local Events.- A minimum of 200 users are be able to use the project IOs.

Europe requires its educators to be culturally and intellectually equipped in appropriate ways for both their present and their future. Only thus will they be able to lead meaningful and satisfying lives personally, socially, professionally and collectively. Adult education Institutions play a major role in developing appropriate strategies for adult learners and preparing their educators in a life long learning perspective, for a productive career. However, adult learning is the weakest link in developing Lifelong Learning towards interpersonal skills development among adult educators and learners, which impedes educators’ expected productive career due to a lack of a set of skills toward their social and professional development. See https://bit.ly/2XEMpRP Further, even though the importance of adult educators competences is at some extend understood, an understanding of the concept alone is insufficient. The true importance lies in the implications a competences-based approach has on adults teaching, training and learning: appropriate methods for teaching and training, participatory learning activities as well as effective learning and performance assessment methods to foster the skills in terms of knowledge, understanding and attitudes. An approach which requires educators to have a high level of interpersonal skills to meet the needs of learners, regardless of their backgrounds or their learning and performance abilities. See https://doi.org/10.7227/JACE.13.2.9 In this regards, the project seeks to address the challenges to the lack or low-level of interpersonal skills among adult educators by fostering their empowerment through training and teaching activities based on practical and dynamic approaches: participatory learning methods as means for capacity strengthening and interpersonal skills development. The project overall goal is to strengthen the capacity of adult educators in face-to-face training-teaching process, supplemented with mentorship components to facilitate adult learners empowerment. Thus, the project overall objective is to foster interpersonal skills development among adult educators by:(1). producing a handbook based on results of national open-ended consultations on the challenges to interpersonal skills development among adult educators;(2). producing a guide to Interpersonal Skills Development and Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment in adult education;(3). developing training and mentorship material for educators as means to facilitate adult learners Interpersonal Skills Development and Self-Assessment;(4). creating a guide to Interpersonal Skills Awareness-raising through advocacy campaigns and blogging.The partners are invited to develop and share mechanisms to foster interpersonal skills development within adult education and further, promote a sense of belonging for adult learners who are at high risk of exclusion, such as women, refugees and minority groups by creating opportunities for educator to practice their competences in an inclusive learning environment. Moreover, provide the opportunities for practice outside partner institutions to further test, pilot, disseminate and exploit results through practical classes, lecture sessions, seminars, or field training programmes.