People's stories about their experiences provide useful insights into what is happening in their lives and communities. These stories are a valuable source of qualitative data that can be used to inform the findings of research projects, provide intricate understandings of issues pertinent to communities, be catalysts of change in service design, advise local and national agendas and policies, and much more. The Our Voices project found innovative ways of curating people’s stories so that the ideas, messages and knowledge within them can be better shared with the people, groups and organisations in a position to use them to create positive change in communities across Europe.A transnational partnership of organisations from the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy and Poland worked together to better understand story curation through researching existing approaches to analysing stories and how the findings from this analysis is presented. With this knowledge, the partners designed a pan-European approach to curation that enables communities to use stories of their lived experience to pinpoint local, regional, national and international trends, needs and issues. The partners involved in the project are:•People’s Voice Media (PVM), United Kingdom: A charity committed to supporting people to bottom-up social change processes.•Comparative Research Network (CRN), Germany: An organization that pecialised in training activities within the fields of intercultural competences, intergenerational learning, mobilities and migration.•COSV, Italy: An NGO active in the field of the International Cooperation to Development.•CRSMP, Poland: This association engages locally and regionally, primarily on rural development and rural development community.•Foundation Intras (Intras), Spain: A non-profit organization dedicated to high quality research and intervention in the psycho-educational field.•Changemaker AB, Sweden: A change agency who are an experienced actor concerning cooperation and education with Swedish Folk High Schools and Higher Vocational Training programmes.As part of the project we have produced the following intellectual outputs:•a Digital Curation training programme/curriculum•a Digital Curation toolkit/learner book •An online Digital Curation resource bank Using these outputs on a 5-Day training programme in Berlin, we trained 15 Digital Curators across the participating countries. These Digital Curators have used the skills they developed on this training and the resources produced as part of the intellectual outputs to deliver curation activities in the settings in which they work. Through this work the emergence of a pan-European digital curation network has begun, which is supporting communities, particularly those that are marginalised or excluded, to use their voice to create social change. Learning from the project has been shared widely as part of successful multiplier events in the UK and Germany.

"The experiences of young people in rural areas are somewhat different from those of their urban counterparts. This is confirmed when it comes to employment conditions and opportunities in the transition phase from school to work: rural labour markets record the lowest employment rate among young people (15-24 years old - Eurostat, 2017) and are characterised by low skilled and insecure employment. Unsurprisingly, this causes loss of human capital and geographical mobility (""brain drain"") to big cities, with serious consequences not only for youth but also for rural territories and the EU society as a whole (GDP loss, weakening of social cohesion, loss of human capital).OECD studies (2017) confirm there is substantial potential to combat youth unemployment and increase labour market participation by facilitating business creation. The ambitious and innovative objective of CRAFT project is to leverage on a number of real and perceived advantages which may attract people to live in/stay in EU rural areas, as confirmed also during the successfull Erasmus+ initiative ""Youth reworking rural"" (https://youthreworking.eu), thus promoting entrepreneurship among young people in EU rural areas by providing them the fundamentals to setup - within reconverted empty spaces - collaborative working environments which will be hinged on some of the key trends affecting the future labour market, namely the demographic change, the climate change and the technological change (see also the results of ""Future Time Traveller"" Erasmus+ project http://future-time-traveller.eu/). The core idea is to make those coworking spots act as future skills' propulsor engines rather than as aseptic work hangouts, around 3 sectors which are crucial towards the pursue of the European smart, sustainable and inclusive development:- personal care and health-related jobs and services;- green economy;- science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics STE(A)M.The project will be implemented by a complementary partnership composed by 7 organisations from 7 different EU countries. The initiative will be directly addressed to more than 50 young people (18-25 years old) of rural territories involved in the project, as well as to mentors, counsellors, co-working managers, who will be involved in specific activities. Moreover, the whole local socio-economic system and its relevant stakeholders will be positively impacted by the project. CRAFT Project, in order to materialise its objectives and produce its deliverables, comprises a set of intellectual outputs, one learning activity and several multiplier events , supported by management activities and dissemination and exploitation activities that will ensure the use of its results even after the project has ended.The C activity and multiplier events will constitute the core of the project as they will allow groups of young people to put ideas into practice; by creating collaborative workspaces for the future but virtually and as physical prototypes. Moreover, project foresees the production, use, evaluation and promotion of 4 intellectual outputs: IO1 - Training programme for builders of future-looking collaborative work environments in rural areas; IO2 - Educational 3D virtual world- CRAFT VW Platform; IO3 - E-book for a forward-looking management of coworking spaces; IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers. All intellectual outputs will be uploaded on the website and made available to target groups, partners, associate partners and external stakeholders during and beyond the life of the project. IO 2- Educational 3D virtual world will be open to customization in the form of expanding the pedagogical and learning tasks where new features and scripts can be implemented based on the openness of the underlying platform; while IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers will remain active and will be further expanded. Co-working spaces prototypes will remain visible to external stakeholders interested in further investing in co-working models.The dissemination activities will be designed ad hoc for the new virtual generation and to assure transferability and sustainability of products and results. Instragram, You Tube and the FB page will be the core of the dissemination strategy. Partners commit themselves to further invest in co-working creation and improvement and to create a bridge between young people and potential investors to make sure that, at least some of the ideas developed, could become real collaborative work spaces in the next future."

"The project PROSPECTS IN THE PERIPHERIES (PIP) aims to counter uneven development which increasingly marginalises the peripheral regions across Europe. The peripheries, which are increasingly less favored over urban centers, as a result often have fewer opportunities in terms of (among others): youth migration; declining learning and training opportunities; fewer cultural events; loss of socioeconomic capital. Narrow labour markets and business opportunities, few cultural events and learning opportunities can lead to further marginalisation and radicalisation of youth that stay behind in peripheries, while those with sufficient social or economical capital move to more central regions. This project deploys innovative educational methods to involve NEETs in the job market, creating for them various tools that, at the same time, can promote entrepreneurship, especially of sustainable ideas in the partners' cities: this means that the project ""PIP"" contributes to building the prospects and economies of the periperipies. The partnership is composed by 7 experienced organisations from Copenhaghen (Denmark), Perfugas (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Czestochowa (Poland), Kuopio (Poland), Larisa (Greece), and Alora (Spain) with respective/complementary expertise. PIP intends to implement: - 5 transnational project meeting - 1 JSTE - 2 Intellectual Outputs - 7 Multiplier Events - Monitoring and Evaluation activities - Various other outcomes - Dissemination activities - Final training seminaries for NEETs during a period of 28 months of project activities running from 01-09-2019 til 31/12/2021. The 2 foreseen intellectual outputs are: 1) PERIPHERIES SMART PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES REPORT and 2) PERIPHERIES TRAINING TOOL KIT. Both of the intellectual outputs are planned to allow for the development of innovative tools to train NEETs to develop their own projects, thus promoting local communities, in direct connection with the JSTE planned to be realized in Spain and directred as a T.o.T. (training of trainers) for the partner staff involved. The staff should train during the final semiars for the NEETs, who will then exhibit their outcomes from the training at the 7 multiplier events. The project foresees an enormous and effective impact at local, regional, national and European level on various target groups and it is really sustainable also after the project end because it can generate job opportunities for young people in the peripheries and involve also Municipalities, Businesses, and other stakeholders in its promotion."