"The project ""Young Caritas Europa network"" intends the cross-linking of the previously existing national ""Young Caritas"" -departments from Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany, and two regional / local ""Young Caritas"" - departments from South Tyrol (in representation of Caritas Italy) and Vienna (the first ""Young Caritas"" - departments in Europe at all). The ""Young Caritas"" concept is new and wants to invite young people to commit themselves in a creative, innovative way, with their own views for the society, for the benefit of people in precarious situations (with disability, in poverty, refugees, on the road ...) and in favor of issues of equity and sustainability (consumption, energy, environment, recycling, ...). A Europe-wide network corresponds to the desire of Young Caritas to promote solidarity and humanity in Europe, which includes the disadvantaged people and in which the young people want to invest voluntarily their energy.The project has the following objectives: 1 bring the committed young people from partner countries into contact with each other2 bring the professional full-time staff from the partner countries into contact with each other3 work out common themes that can be passed and used in the partner countries and in all Caritas organizations as a contribution to a better world 4 exchange and apply new types of activities and methods of voluntary work with young people 5 offer joint European actions (eg European Young Caritas days to a topic, European meeting of young people, ...) 6 formalize and intensify the already initiated efforts (eg the first european Young-Caritas-day on the subject of refuge and migration on 25th September 2014, the European Youth Exchanges YOUropean in Montenegro, Luxembourg and Germany (Berlin), the European Volunteering Service EVS,...) The project is requested for 2 years, so fixed contacts, solid processes and structures and common online platforms (website, Facebook group and page, Youtube channel, ..) can be established in favor of the sustainability of the network even after the expiry of the project. The linchpin of the dynamics of the network are on the one hand three transnational meetings at which representatives of the professionals and the young people come together, share and define the broad lines. On the other hand, young people from the partner countries should get to know each other in a Multiplier event in order to continue working together on the network.The impact of the ""Young-Caritas Europa network"" should be felt as well on all Young-Caritas-departments (local, regional, national) as on the Caritas groups and associations, on Caritas Europa and the civil society. The last and ultimate goal remains to offer opportunities to the young people to develop their social and human skills in the service of disadvantaged people and to provide these skills for a Europe which is based on solidarity, cultural wealth and the common social and human objectives of people."

<< Background >>Community engagement, participative processes and the strengthening of the role of communities in strategies for economic development, inclusion and social cohesion are considered increasingly important for the implementation of the SDGs in the communities. In particular, these assets are essential to: - increase the understanding and the commitment of citizens, in particular the more vulnerable, to the proposed programs, with important positive implications on social inequalities;- strengthen the competences of individuals and the resources of communities in the implementation of the programs, in a perspective of social and economic sustainability of the policies put in play.As a consequence, acquiring new innovative competences for the involvement of communities becomes a priority for the academic world and for those working on inclusion and social cohesion, in order to be able to pursue policy implementation processes that have long-term effects.The difficulty to translate these strategies into practice, in different places and contexts, might diminish it to a simple slogan, a superficial ritual, an expensive and ineffective practice. To prevent this, it is essential to develop innovative methodologies and tools based on already existing practices and know-hows to support practitioners and academic researchers, to accelerate the possibility to align practices and methods to the aim of inclusive, cohesive change and sustainability.To this aim, the development of partnerships between CSOs and universities appears to be a valuable solution, but this kind of partnership has never been developed to this day. This cross-contamination is difficult due to the different “languages” spoken by the two “interest camps”, by the dispersion and low visibility of many grassroots initiatives and by the inherent struggle of the academic world in fostering effective outreach activities. Creating network models of intervention, where knowledge, ownership and resources are distributed among the stakeholders and the beneficiaries themselves, could create systems of socio-economic inclusion that are more effective and resilient to changes and shock. These systems enable the regeneration and the valorisation of resources - be them physical, environmental, social or relational - that might be already present but undetected in the territories and in the communities involved. Furthermore, the shared ownership and responsibility over the development projects, based also on the empowerment of vulnerable and marginalised people, can foster reciprocity dynamics that are themselves a way to include and engage people and communities in the long-term, contributing to positive effects and reduced dependency.Creating partnership between Universities and Civil Society Organisations, can eventually overcome the lack of communication between the two “camps” by boosting a better organised and intentional transfer of knowledge to and from each of the stakeholders, enriching and strengthening both the theory and the practices.The project foresees the development of a partnership between Universities and Civil Society Organisations with the aim to transfer the know-how to fostering community engagement and multi-stakeholder partnerships among actors operating in several countries. University researchers and students will play a central role in these processes, as the project will allow to set up ad hoc research groups in the partner Universities, that will work with CSOs professionals to collect, analyse, model and re-elaborate data and practices in different forms (models, recommendations, toolkits).The project has the priority and purpose of working on common values in order to increase community participation and citizen engagement through reaching synergies between the academic world and the third sector. The values of sharing and European solidarity will be at the centre of the project through the activities already mentioned<< Objectives >>The project aims at improving Universities’ capacities to cooperate with CSOs systematically and continuously on community engagement as an innovative and impactful way for socio-economic inclusion of people in need. The project consortium will establish a trans-disciplinary and collaborative research group and develop international and research-based learning approaches to develop and disseminate innovative and evidence-based models of intervention and related implementation tools. The project consortium will also identify relevant professional roles that make community engagement approaches more effective and impactful, it will co-design corresponding skills and competency frameworks and develop related training (up-skilling) curricula and courses for students and CSOs professionals. Finally, the project partners will develop, through jointly-organised local policy multi-stakeholders workshops, guidelines and policy recommendations to enable environments that favour community engagement approaches.Partners strongly believe that the mission of universities nowadays should include responding to societal challenges and that this mission should be carried out by engaging systematically with local communities. Higher education contributes in various ways to making people more resilient and able to face various challenges. According to the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings which assess universities on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) universities score highly for their Partnership approach in working towards the goals (SDG 17), for helping to improve Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG 16) and for contributing to Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11). The project will be implemented by 8 partners (4 Universities and 4 CSOs) from 6 EU countries (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Italia, Romania, Spain), with the support of a European CSOs network, 2 Universities and 2 CSOs as associated partners. The project partners will cooperate for 3 years towards the following Specific Objectives:SO1: To develop innovative and evidence-based models (and related implementing tools) for impactful community engagement interventions by setting up a trans-disciplinary and continuous collaboration between Universities and CSOs, analysing existing innovative practices on the ground all over Europe and adopting collaborative and research-based learning methodologies.SO2: To widen the academic offer of Universities by identifying specific professional roles that make community engagement approaches more effective and impactful, by generating skills and competency frameworks related to these professional roles, by developing corresponding training courses curricula and implementing a first experimental course addressed to master’s students.SO3:Fostering civic engagement through jointly-organised (Universities and CSOs)multi-stakeholder policy workshops at local levels to brainstorm with local stakeholders and citizens on how to design more effective and inclusive initiatives in their territories and to develop local policy recommendations to enable and support community engagement approaches at local, national and European levels.<< Implementation >>The project is based on a clear and simple structure in which the results build one on the other, following a step-by-step approach and where the activities are shared by partners rather than divided among them. In a logic of building a systematic and continuous cooperation, all partners contribute to all activities with their specific and key capacities. They also implement similar types of activities at the same time in all 6 countries for the following reasons:1. To enhance the quality of the result produced and ensure their application and transferability in different contexts. This is the case of activities for the validation of the results (i.e. the toolkits – PR1 – will be validated through a series of surveys/interviews that will take place in each of the 6 countries, similar approach is foreseen for the validation of PR2)2. To improve the number and diversity of stakeholders reached out to and involved. This is the case of the local workshops and production of local policy recommendations (PR3).3. To disseminate the results of the project at grassroots level, ensuring that key actors that needed to be involved in the community engagement initiatives are aware of the project and its results and able to use the tools produced by the project.4. To involve people belonging to marginalised categories in all stages of the project.Even though all partners contribute to all results, each activity/task of the project has been clearly assigned to 1 partner who is responsible for coordination and its successful implementation.The stages of the project are the following:Stage 1: The cooperation will start with the setup of a Study Group which will work throughout the entire project. Promising practices on community engagement will be collected and made available by partners (including associated ones) and will be analysed by the Study Group. This activity will bring the partnership to have a common understanding of community engagement processes by bringing together the academic expertise with the know-how based on the practices analysed.Stage 2: This common understanding on community engagement will bring the partners to a second level of cooperation where results mainly targeting CSOs (toolkits) and Universities (Curriculum/Courseware Development Framework and LTTA 1) will be produced, validated and made available to the wider public.Stage 3: In order to be more effective and have a real impact for the inclusion of people in need, the partners will run in their countries 2 workshops where they will engage with local stakeholders and policy makers with the aim to create an enabling environment for community engagement initiatives. As a result, partners will produce a series of local policy recommendations and they will work together to identify policy recommendations applicable in all EU countries. Stage 4: The partners will ensure, by organising one multiplier event in each of the 6 countries and one European event, the promotion and dissemination of the project results and they will ensure, by using the Erasmus+ platforms and their own existing web platforms that the results of the projects are available to the public.<< Results >>The first project result (PR1) entails the development of a set of 6 Toolkits, structured as interactive digital “how to do” guides based on models of different successful typologies of action for community engagement (CE) in different areas/target groups. Preliminarily, the main areas/target groups where to focus the collection of practices eventually analysed and modelled are: EU citizenship, migrants integration, environmental action, gender empowerment, economic integration of NEETS, management of common resources. The toolkits will be made available to CSOs involved, but possibly also beyond to the wider public, in order to support cooperation at the local level in planning and adapting models of interventions in other contexts to promote the inclusion of people in need through CE, multi-stakeholder and regenerative approaches. The toolkits, as well as a database of best practices, the modelling and other relevant outreach materials, will be made available to the wider public thanks to the digital e-learning platform S-nodi Education (www.edu.s-nodi.org), an already existing and fully functional digital infrastructure provided by S-nodi. S-nodi Education is a digital platform addressed to people and organizations working in the social field wishing to improve the management of resources in a sustainable and smart way. The platform is accessible by every device and it provides the space and infrastructure to set up and allow user-friendly navigation of different tools such as interactive toolkits and repositories. The related transversal outcome is the creation of synergic cooperation between CSOs involved in community engagement and universities doing analyses and modelling promising practices of community engagement.Another outcome is an increased academic offer through the design and development of new courses curricula on community engagement (PR2). Based on the analyses of practices and identification of models of interventions, key professional roles that make community engagement initiatives effective and impactful will be identified and new skills and competency frameworks will be developed for the corresponding professional roles (“Community Engagement Competence Framework”). The PR2 will consist of two methodological tools: a “Curriculum/Courseware Development Framework” will provide the methodological basis to design: (i) a module for master degree programs and (ii) a course for in-service competence development (training) of CSOs’ staff. A LTTA (Community Engagement Summer School) for 30 students will be also organised in this framework and a “Mentoring Capacity building Guide” will be produced, mainly addressing the needs of Universities’ faculty members, who will be tutoring and driving flagship projects for both the university students and the CSOs’ staff who will be joining the aforementioned courses.The third result (PR3) is the production of policy recommendations. Project and associated partners will organise 2 multi-stakeholder Policy workshops per country (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain). The first workshop will aim at testing the toolkits and models of interventions and brainstorming on how to adapt the toolkits to the local context. The first workshop findings, obtained through interactive exercises, will aim to develop policy recommendations that will be structured and better defined during the second workshop addressed to the same participants. The policy recommendations gathered in the 6 countries will be translated into a set of recommendations on the synthesis of processes used in community engagement for European policy makers’ audiences. The recommendations will be presented, together with the other results, in the final multiplier event (conference) in Brussels.

"A vision of Europe - How do we want to live together in the future?Young Caritas is a concept of volunteering in social space: young people express their own worldview in a creative way and make their world more humane, more just, where they think it is necessary. The spectrum ranges from sustainability issues to personal encounters with people in precarious situations. This consciously refers to Europe: living European cohesion, being open to refugees and migrants, caring for people in poverty, preventing any form of exclusion, building a socially just and solidary Europe.The thematic focus of the Strategic Partnership is strongly oriented towards current socio-political developments and the interests of our target group. The topic of ""sustainability"", in all its facets and its comprehensive ecological, economic and especially social influence on us as a society and its possible visions for Europe. Young people have become a mouthpiece for our planet at the latest since Greta Thunberg, and socio-political commitment is on the agenda. At the same time, this creates awareness that nothing exists independently and that change requires visonary thinking and courageous action. Young people play an important role here. This vision of a Europe of the future in all its diversity is what we want to address in this partnership.Our aim is to give young people from different backgrounds the opportunity to work on a common, innovative vision for Europe. We want to promote active citizenship, peace, social inclusion and justice, environmental sustainability and solidarity, and give young people the opportunity to think innovatively and visionarily. It is not enough to dream of a Europe of the future. Dreams are expectations of the future and are important. They open new horizons, ideas and technologies. However, it is also important that we think about how these goals can be achieved and how our ideas can be realised. Young people will play an essential role in this process and must be strengthened to be able to play this role!Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, also said in her speech at the opening of the plenary session of the European Parliament that the pioneers of Europe have contributed with their visions, to a more united and just Europe (see: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hu/speech_19_4230) As she continued, that today ""wir wieder kämpfen müssen und aufstehen müssen für unser Europa. Die ganze Welt ist herausgefordert, mit disruptiven Entwicklungen umzugehen, die auch an Europa nicht vorbeigehen. Der demografische Wandel, die Globalisierung der Weltwirtschaft, die rasante Digitalisierung unserer Arbeitswelt und natürlich der Klimawandel"" (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hu/speech_19_4230)."

"CONTEXTWe are witnessing the lack of direct interaction between people who share a common territory, especially between people in social marginalization and those with more privileges. This has serious consequences such as racism, stereotypes, xenophobia and withdrawal. Our workshops meet the need for exchange between people in a benevolent and constructive setting. They thus make it possible to re-humanize the way how ""others are perceived"" by putting people, stories and voices, on these images. We are convinced that we have a lot of richness to exchange, while the prevailing speech is based on distrust. From the training to the show, workshops are driven by exchanges and collective reflections, and by the practice and the explanation of radiophonic methods.The joint creation of a radio program is a pretext for a meeting. The microphone releases the speech. It is an opportunity to create a dialogue and to question our daily environment and to address some taboo or overlooked topics related to social inclusion.OBJECTIVESV.I.T.A (Voices In The Air) Project would like to set a new methodology to use the radio not only as a mean for self-expression and representation but also as an artistic and creative way to address topics related to social inclusion such as empowerment, equality, interculturality, identity, values and democratization process.1- The social inclusion of minority groups through empowerment and with techniques of Social Radio with the willingness of combating the prejudices and stereotypes, from their own perspective and stories. 2- To generate radio and media content to raise awareness of discrimination in society with special attention to ageism, gender inequalities and different kinds of diversity, such as sexual orientation or cultural origin by actively promote their social inclusion.3- To support individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences (by the co-construction of the radio workshops, pre and post production)4- Extending and developing the competences of educators and other personnel who support adult learners by providing a complete set of tools to easily reproduce the experience with their own groups. We will also provide them with the necessary background theory to better address key topics of Social InclusionMETHODOLOGY1. Participatory Methodologies: allow a group with diverse interests to acquire an ever greater role in the analysis of their own reality and decision -making, thus become crucial actors in their own development. 2. The Process Oriented Psychology: focuses on developing a state of consciousness; i.e. helping individuals and groups to realize how they perceive and live their experiences and learn to change their approach. 3. Radio techniques following the output of IO1: methodology consisting of a set of exercises that promote observation, critical action and pro - positive participation. The methodological arsenal of Theater of the Oppressed, Personal Storytelling, allows for individual and collective reflection and action will be helpful to work on the skills needed to communicate through Radio regards to structural social problematic, minority group conflicts and individual internalized oppression. PARTICIPANTS / Activities and ResultsThe whole project is designed in a way that the targeted group of disadvantage people feels represented and more important feels that the project belongs to them. We payed special attention on how to integrate their perspective and interest in almost every Intellectual OutputThey will be at the same time participants on the co construction of the IOs , participants and main actors of the radio workshops.IO1 : Setup Radio WorkshopsParticipants will be trained by the partner's organisation on how to prepare the technical parts of the radio workshop so they can later be multipliers themselves for their communities or others that want to reproduce the radio show experience.IO2 : Case StudiesParticipants are and the protagonist of the case studies, they will work alongside the trainer of each partner organisation witnessing the experience, testing the different methodologies, preparing and co constructing the workshops and the topics they want to addressIO3 : MethodologiesParticipant are invited to brainstorm and explore different approach on the radio field. To develop technical skills related to the production of a radio show and all the necessary soft skills to achieve it. All of this competence are transferable to other domains as for example to enter the labor market.IO4 : Repertoire for Social Inclusion Participants, helped by the trainer will find key words or topics they want to address as key factors of social inclusion. IO5 : Self Learning platformThe participants will offer their testimonies and experience as they will be the protagonist of each case study. They will disseminate their production radio shows , methods and repertoire."

The aim of CONCRIT is to work towards a socially cohesive Europe, which requires self-confident, fully informed and educated citizens. In Europe many small solutions exist isolated - or are created over and over again- without being connected. CONCRIT aspires to connect those needs.In the initial assessment, the partners identified needs, which can be answered by a general learning path that should address challenges as lacking insight of how participation works, the general disenchantment of marginalised communities from politics and digital exclusion. The educators seek learner driven tools, way to build a community and to de-construct discriminatory stereotypes. The learners need digital learning tools/ methods which engage and work with different communities and developing storytelling and group narratives as a method for civic education.The partners are:Comparative Research Network, Germany (coordinator);Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Familie, Germany;Miejski Osrodek Pomocy Spolecznej w Gdyni, Poland;Cartias der Erzdiozese Wien, Austria;Peoples‘ Voice Media, UKLaboratorio per le Politiche Sociali, Italy. TThe direct target groups of CONCRIT are adult educators, volunteers and community worker focused on civic education. The indirect are learners, members of the marginalised communities and on a deeper level all European citizen.Community Narration utilizes personal stories and community narratives as an entry into the evaluation process. The process attempts to reduce hierarchies between the “consultant” (e.g. facilitators, educators, social workers) and the community involved. The community narratives consist out of personal stories, however stories and narratives are intimately tied with one another. Each community has a unique set of narratives that are a source of growth, and a way for a community to creatively find its narratives. Telling stories is an enjoyable and enriching experience and community members feel like becoming understood from the outside. Understanding personal and community narratives helps all stakeholders to better understand the community. This community narration could be easily used to teach and understand critical thinking.The project will be combined out of 5 phases and will produce 3 intellectual outputs. The input phase is a desktop-research on smart practices in teaching digital narration principles and media literacy. The results will be presented at Transnational Meetings and facilitators will be invited to test them in a peer-review lab.During the Creation phase, the intellectual output will be created. The collected practices, methods and experiences are reviewed and used to co-design two learning paths.During the adaption phase the partners will work with the general learning path and create the locally working adaptions. At the end of the phase all paths (1 general and 6 local) will be ready to be tested.In the Testing and reflection phase 2 impact trainings will be organised, where the developed paths will be applied to local stakeholder. In the sharing phase, the paths will be presented to the public in multiplier events. The reviewed smart practices will be published in a digital repository and in a series of multiplier events. CONCRIT will create:1.A training plan (learning path) on how to include digital storytelling and media literacy in broadly general civic education, which is flexible for various target groups and communities, which their specific challenges and perspectives2.A training plan (learning path) on how to adapt the previous path to the different situation. The path will contain 6 sample plans developed and tailored for the needs of the 6 partners plus instructions on how the paths might be altered and adapted.3.A Digital repository/Map which will collect methods and tools of teaching digital literacy – available for any interested citizen in Europe.Next to these we plan to deliver the following results:1. Development of a sustainable strategic partnership for ongoing collaboration and sharing of smart practices2. A website to support community narrators, organisations and facilitators.3. A report on civic education methods to involve disadvantaged communities through media literacyWe expect that adult facilitators will gain a new tool to train and teach and empower the communities. The general learning path will provide easy hands-on tools, providing innovative methods, which will motivate the learners to stay involved and feel empowered. In the adapted learning paths, the learners will learn how to get involved, strengthen their awareness on social and political processes and make them aware of their rights as citizens. Teaching approaches as critical thinking or the construction and de-construction of narratives strengthen the self-confidence of the learners. They will have a stronger personality and a strengthen sense for local, helping to fight back radicalization and exclusion.