The general objective was always the inclusion of youth with functional diversity though the art and artistic expression. The project worked on stigma, isolation, social exclusion and lack of access to cultural and artistic world through awareness, empowerment, creating participatory spaces, the approach of cultural and artistic activities that will generate a horizontal and based on ability and citizen participation methodology.Five organizations from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Hungary believed in the need to create a strategic partnership to develop a project where young disabled participants will be trained about an artistic discipline (Land Art, photography, dance, music or theater) and then they will create an artistic project by themselves and later they will participate in the the whole dissemination of projectDuring the 1st phase, we carried out artistic workshops were held combining the participation of young people with disabilities, volunteers and professionals. In addition to the collection of projects and artistic actions carried out previously in each country to inspire the methodology applied by our participants.In a second phase, the participants carried out their own artistic projects (play, dance show, music show, exhibition of Land Art works, etc.).In a third phase, each country presented its artistic projects with exhibitions / shows at the local level, in different multiplier events.As a final action of the project, a week of activities was carried out in Budapest, combining workshops where participants from each country transmitted the methodologies learned during the previous phases to participants from other countries.Also, during the workshops, participants from all countries had the opportunity to jointly design and create the final exhibition / performance that brought together all the artistic disciplines of the project.Impact of Artbilities project:• Minimum of 120 direct participants in the project activities (among young people with disabilities, professionals and volunteers).• Approximately 60 entities, out of the partnership, from the social, cultural and artistic sector have participated in some way in the achievement, production or dissemination of any activity. Among them we can find 15-20 public entities.• Related to general public, more than 300 people per country, so more than 1500 people have interacted in some way with the Artbilities project, through the online platform (product of the project), the Facebook accounts and attending exhibitions, performances or multiplier events.Intelectual outputs:• Guide ArtIBILITIES• Video Documentary ArtIBILITIES about the process.• Online platform ArtBILITIES to continue with the Exchange of best practices of social inclusion through art and cultural activities.

"<< Background >>The Project is based on the theme of the social inclusion of young people through the use of art therapy, understood as an educational tool that stimulates the intrinsic potential of the person, helps young people to develop - through creativity - their own life project, and thus they benefit from their self-realization in society. The aim of the project is to develop the ability of partner organizations to work for the social inclusion of young people through art therapy methodologies.The educational approach of art therapy is, in fact, particularly effective in promoting the social inclusion of young people, as it is capable of:- by far the positive individual potentials emerge;- significantly increase self-esteem;- increase the ability to react proactively to stress (resilience);- develop social and relational skills.These are important aspects of social research confirm as decisive for social inclusion(Repper & Perkins, 2003).<< Objectives >>The project will produce several results, among the ""intangible"" results we find:For YOUTH OPERATORS (direct target) who are part of the staff of the partner organizations, and other operators involved in the project activities:-increase of skills on educational and animation practices regarding social inclusion; in particular methodologies and educational paths aimed at the use of art therapy in its various forms, in order to promote social inclusion;- acquisition of knowledge and skills to carry out educational activities at a distance through art therapy, for the social inclusion of young NEETs;- acquisition of knowledge and skills to use art therapy to highlight the needs of young NEETs and to involve them in educational activities;- increasing the capacity for cooperation at European level (for youth workers and staff members of partner organizations).For PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS (direct target) that are part of the project:-improvement of skills on educational and animation practices related to the social inclusion of young NEETs through art therapy;- increasing the capacity for cooperation at European level.For YOUNG PEOPLE (indirect target) who will participate in the training activities organized after each meeting, the expected results concern:- development of personal skills (self-awareness, ability to express and relate, self-esteem);-improvement of the ability of young people to act proactively in their family and social context;- improvement of key skills, depending on the applied art therapy approaches (ability to use ICT tools, civic and social skills, cultural expression skills, etc.);- increase in the social inclusion of young participants, as a result of the skills and abilities developed.For OTHER ORGANIZATIONS (indirect target) of the third sector and educational institutions aimed at young people (reached by dissemination activities):- raising awareness of the importance of art therapy and education to promote social inclusion;-increase of skills on educational and animation practices related to social inclusion;- raising awareness on the European dimension of the phenomenon of social exclusion of young people and the responses to this problem.<< Implementation >>RESULTS AND TRAINING ACTIVITIESAmong the tangible results of the project we find:- 3 meetings in partner countries for the exchange of good practices on art therapy and education with young people, with specific attention to NEETs; each meeting will have a specific focus;- 2 remote preparatory meetings for training activities;- after each training activity meeting, the partner organizations will experience the methodologies learned by carrying out training and animation activities with young people (total 20 workshops).DISSEMINATIONThe project will carry out various dissemination activities (among the tangible results of the project) in order to disseminate the results of the project, to increase knowledge of the phenomenon of young NEETs in Europe and the importance of art therapy methodologies.<< Results >>Four results will be produced, namely:-R1 Collection of educational methodologies based on art therapy methods, for the social inclusion of NEETs;-R2 Creation of educational methodologies (Toolkit);-R3 Training module on educational methodologies based on art therapy approaches;-R4 Video tutorials on art therapy methodologies for the social inclusion of NEETs. The videos will be uploaded to the StoryAp portal (Stories for Active Participation- www.storyap.eu), the result of a European project in the youth sector."

"We chose Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in adult teaching as the priority of our project because ICTs are playing an important role in the life of many people nowadays.Learning digital skills are required keys to society and economic development. As modern societies and economies are changing due to globalization and technological progress, a fundamental transformation of education and training (E&T) throughout Europe is required to achieve the knowledge and skills needed for growth, employment and active participation in society. ""Digital Storytelling Tools for Adult Educators"" ( DST)- exchange of good practice Erasmus+ Programme strategic partnership is organized by UG KLARA I ROSA (Serbia), The Akademie für Politische Bildung und demokratiefördernde Maßnahmen (Austria), VšĮ EDUKACINIAI PROJEKTAI (Lithuania), Associação Recreativa Cultural e Social de Silveirinhos (Portugal) and Libera Università Europea Terza età Campania (Italy). The primary goal of this project is to allow partner organizations to reinforce EU networks for teaching/learning ICT process increasing. The adult educators and staff will enhance the capacity to work at the transnational level, sharing and exchanging ideas, improving knowledge about practices and DST methods as an inclusive teaching technique.The project partners are all actors involved in the adult education field. The partners come from Serbia, Austria, Lithuania, Portugal and Italy and most of them have already gained experience in the Program Erasmus +.Starting from experiences and good practices owned by the partner institutions on Digital Storytelling method implementation our international consortium will improve adult educators' competencies in using digital storytelling tools in order to create in their classrooms the multimedia projects. ""Digital Storytelling Tools for Adult Educators"" partnership focuses on the use and adaptation of different digital tools in the ICT teaching /learning adult process. Educators will be able to use in the educational system digital storytelling at all levels to help students develop writing, presentation, organization, and problem-solving skills to reach an effective digital inclusion.Our project activities are planned to better prepare and deploy the education and training of professionals for equity, diversity and inclusion challenges in the learning environment using DST method as a motivation strategy to involve all adult people in the digital era.We planned three international project meetings in Italy, mid-term in Serbia a final in Austria, one short-term joint staff training in Portugal focused on digital storytelling method and digital tool skills adult acquiring to enrich educators curricula.The training activities are designed to motivate and encourage participants to learn and test DST method in their adult classrooms. The participants will be trained to teach low-qualified adults/seniors low - digital skilled adults included immigrants on autobiographical approach in digital education.The consortium will provide the following results:-Data sources included field notes and digital stories created by the adult students.-A virtual exhibition of digital stories made by training course participants.-Educator’s toolkit collecting and suggesting digital tools, best practices, improved exchanges during international meetings.-Promotional material design and distribution.During the project activities development, the additional educational experiences, workshops and some cultural related activities are planned in order to reach further impacts, not only digital capability and awareness. Some experts on adult education and DST method will join these mini courses and seminars. For dissemination activities and sustainability activities, a plan and task sharing are prepared, and every partner is given some responsibility for these phases of the project. The project will involve actively relevant stakeholders of local communities and associated partners in the world of adult digital education. These have already been identified at the application stage. They will be involved in local activities and will bring their experiences in storytelling method implementation.The partner organizations will develop and reinforce EU adult educators networks for using the DST method in the teaching/learning process helping to fill the digital divide across Europe."

"<< Background >>The COVID-19 pandemic and the confinement measures implemented in many EU countries have caused major upheavals in people's lives from multiple points of view. Indeed, the way in which people can relate to each other and carry out the most basic every-days tasks has been limited, significantly altering the regular implementation of education, training and youth policies. According to some studies (""Youth and COVID-19 Response, Recovery and Resilience"" - OECD, ""Living, Working and COVID-19"" - Eurofund, ""The European Youth Blueprint To Recovery"" - European Youth Forum) focused on the effects of current pandemic in relation to the employment situation and the mental health of young people, these are strongly affected with higher levels of depression, loneliness, tension, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.ACTMEM is based - within this context - on the importance of memory as a way to enhance resilience among young people. Memory, understood both as historical memory and as ""memory of the present"", nourishes the social fabric, enlivening the relationships between different generations, helping the crisis to be elaborated, also thanks to comparisons with the past.The project ACTMEM aims at creating an innovative learning experience addressed to young people and based on storytelling techniques, as a means to combat the sense of isolation related to the restrictive measures adopted by National Governments in response to the health crisis, while increasing key competences such as sense of initiative, social and civic participation and intercultural awareness and expression. The project idea stems from the will to promote a radical change of perspective towards the perception of being young in times of pandemic: from victims of unhappy circumstances limiting their freedom to move, meet, learn and discover, to protagonists of an absolutely exceptional historical era, who showed a great capacity to react and reinvent themselves and whose stories deserve to be recorded and told as sources of inspiration for the present and future generations.ACTMEM is focused on an emerging need stemming from the isolation and dramatic reduction of sociality of youth. Youth organisations recognise the need to involve with new methodologies youth in activities and experiences able to radically change the perception and the perspective of being young in time of pandemic through the implementation of narrative methodologies aiming at helping the expression, sharing and comparison among youth experiences of this historical period and emergency in a cross-border approach. Youth need to reflect on the current difficulties and understand their role as protagonists of an absolutely exceptional historical era, who showed a great capacity to react and reinvent themselves and whose stories deserve to be recorded and told as sources of inspiration for the present and future generations.ACTMEM wants to give new awareness to all youths as promoters of the communities. TARGET GROUPS of the project are:•YOUTH experiencing isolation during the pandemic but also active in solidarity actions within their own communities.•YOUTH with fewer possibilities and economical, social obstacles including youth with disabilities experienced the most difficult isolation: to listen to them and find solutions for tackling such disparities is one of the most compelling needs of youth organisations and society as a whole. •YOUTH Leaders in need to acquire new skills and methodologies for improving the involvement of youth in collective and individual solidarity actions.•YOUTH ORGANISATIONS are in permanent need to engage youths in active citizenship by promoting solidarity and a common sense of citizenship.<< Objectives >>Youth need to reflect on the current difficulties and understand their role as protagonists of an absolutely exceptional historical era, who showed a great capacity to react and reinvent themselves and whose stories deserve to be recorded and told as sources of inspiration for the present and future generations. Telling and sharing the ""memory of the present"", with reference to the new generations, means in particular:· the possibility, for young people, to narrate and share experiences related to the pandemic, as a contrast to isolation; both as communication to each other and intergenerational communication. We know how social distancing, the closure of schools, youth centers and social places generated deep discomfort in young Europeans of all ages, in a phase of life where the relationships with peers and with reference adults, even outside the family, are key.· At the same time, ""memory of the present"" means telling and sharing the experiences of resilience and solidarity that were achieved by civil society as a response to the crisis, and which saw the strong presence of young people. We are talking about different experiences of solidarity from the bottom: from the distribution of food and medicine to the most vulnerable people, to remote listening and support activities to combat the loneliness of the elderly, to the most various cultural initiatives.The project partners aim to actively involve young people in the process of collection and reconstruction of their individual stories and inspiring experiences related to the way they went through the pandemic and the different strategies they developed to tackle the new challenges brought by the virus.In particular, the specific objectives of the project ACTMEM are:• To transform the experience of the pandemic into an opportunity for the development of self-confidence and key competences among young people, such as intercultural awareness and expression, sense of initiative, social and civic participation• To promote inclusive, creative and innovative approaches to storytelling among young people, so as to combat social isolation and reinforce their resilience in response to the current health crisis• To foster the participation of young people in civil society by spreading good practices related to solidarity actions in times of pandemic • To promote the EU values among young people and in particular active citizenship and the pillar of being united in diversityThe project will achieve the above mentioned objectives by creating a blended training path based on storytelling methodologies. This result will lead to the realisation of a Manual addressed to youth leaders for supporting the involvement of youth by providing methodologies and practical guidance. Furthermore ACTMEM will realise an Open Narration virtual space for collecting individual and collective stories representing a priceless digital archive of the memory of life in times of pandemic from the perspective of young people.The expertise and complementarity of the partners inspired the overall design of the project by focusing on narration of individual and collective stories about pandemic and related solidarity’s action born under these difficult times, which, in no other example more than this, may boost the achievement of the general goals by:•Providing youth and youth leader with the possibility to engage with peers coming from different countries;•Providing the possibility to carry out a transnational experience through blended mobility will grant the target groups with an enriched and qualifying experience in different cultural environments.•Giving them the chance to know and to understand different experiences improving in this way both the knowledge about different countries and the sense of European citizenship.<< Implementation >>ACTMEM work plan is structured in such a way to show consecutive and intersecting activities that can be simplified in different phases. Phase 1 Setting up the ACTMEM instruments: the ACTMEM managers and working teams will set up the tool for a smooth and timely implementation of all the activities: management plan and tools, dissemination plan, quality assessment plan and tools will be prepared and placed in force. These activities will be carried out for the whole duration of the project. The internal reporting of project activities and outcomes will be performed on a six-monthly basis. The work on R1 - ACTMEM blended learning workshop will start with the establishment of the didactic team/ editorial team taking care about the analysis and methodology definition including contents for the transnational training event. This phase will see also the production of learning contents for the training event and tutorials (interviews, video, presentations). On the digital side of the project, in this phase also R2 - ACTMEM Digital space for narration will start with an initial definition and drafting features of the web platform, set up of the digital structure for the web platform including Blog and Vlog. In addition, it will start the realization of a set of guided storyboard tools for different thematic areas. The selection of participants for the transnational training event will start.Phase 2 Implementation of core activities: R1 activities such as the production learning contents and tutorials will be still ongoing but the first outcomes for organizing the transnational training event will be ready to be provided: trainers and trainees will meet to set up a common methodology of provision of learning content and a shared approach to the organization of the successive local workshops. Further tutorials, training contents and storytelling will be realized by the Youth Leaders attending as learners and at the end the learning outcomes and achievement will be assessed and validated.The realization of Manual for youth leaders, still under preparation, will benefit also from this first feedback. Concerning R2, the definition and realization guided storyboard tools and related virtual tools will be fine-tuned, while the definition and implementation of a co-narration virtual space for storytelling (Open Narrating Virtual Space) is under preparation for a first deployment during the Local Workshops activities. The Local Workshops will be organised by youth leaders for transferring knowledge about storytelling toward peers undertaking a pair working approach simplifying the realization of video narrations and storytelling with at least 50 youth per country. At this stage, the Open Narrating Virtual Space will be used: youth leaders and mentors will support youth in approaching this new tool, which will enable the remote collaboration among 40 people in building a collective story also with the support of tutors and facilitators operating on line. Phase 3 Validation, finalization and final dissemination : the Local Workshops and their final validation of the learning outcomes towards target groups will be finalised. The realization of the Manual for Youth Leaders will include feedback of young trainees whose contributions will be included in the verification and finalization of the digital tools as well. The dissemination activities will see their final phase with the organization in each partner country of the Multiplier Event. Along the three phases of the project, the partners will carry out an intensive communication and dissemination activity by involving also associated partners and relevant stakeholders in order to get an high outreach and to build the the basis of a sustainability plan for the future. A quality assessment activity will accompany and support the achievement of results.<< Results >>ACTMEM will realise two main Results:R1 – ACTMEM Blended Learning Workshop - Innovative methodologies for the narration of memoryThis result consists in the realization of a blended training path based on storytelling methodologies. The training contents will be realised by the partners and tested through the involvement of youth leaders during the project implementation (namely transnational training activity). In order to ensure correspondence to the needs of the target groups and facilitate their further enhancement, youth leaders will replicate the learning path by organising local workshops with peers. The whole process including feedback on training contents and learning path and validation of learning contents, will lead to the realisation of a Manual addressed to youth leaders for supporting the replication of the workshops by providing methodologies and practical guidance. Local workshops will be organised in each country’s involving youth groups: all the partners will experiment the educational activities and contents with different groups of young people. In particular: each partner will set up 5 storytelling workshops with the involvement of a very high number of young people: 50 per country and 200 in total. As an additional output the whole process will lead to the Manual including guidelines for Youth Leaders on adapting methodologies in different contexts and different groups of young people.ACTMEM Workshops is an innovative result, and will contribute to: -increase of skills in youth leaders/mentors and organisations regarding educational work with young people through narration methodologies, focused on developing resilience in young people in the pandemic crisis and leads to a greater ability to address the needs of the young people they work with.-increase of skills related to storytelling methodologies, enhancement of resilience skills and capacity to reflect and take action to face the pandemic crisis effectsR2 - ACTMEM web platform This result consists of an interactive virtual space targeted to young people where individual stories will be shared and by the end of the project around 240 stories will be available. The web platform constitutes a tool to facilitate the collection and constructive reflection on the experiences developed and lessons learnt during the times of pandemic, representing as well a networking tool aimed to facilitate interaction among young people at European level, thanks to the implementation of the feature “Open Narrating Virtual Space” allowing the collaboration of 10 to 40 people for the realization of a collective narrations across Europe. The platform will include tutorials, training contents and storyboards aiming at supporting the realisation of individual and collective narrations. The feature Open Narrating Virtual Space enables young people to co-creative sessions with peers, giving the possibility to open dialogue with different cultural approaches to pandemic and to increase the social aspect. ACTMEM Platform will contribute in creating the following benefit: -for young people the platform will facilitate the practice of some of the educational activities created by the R1, thus facilitating participation. -ACTMEM will not be yet another platform but, creating a historical memories archive, it will allow different study domains to access civil society and youth memories in order to analyze and acquire a more comprehensive knowledge about the social and moral effect of pandemic. Even when the pandemic is defeated, the experiences of resilience born in this period of emergency, the awareness and lessons learned from these experiences, can remain as a memory of this historic challenge that Europe is going through.ACTMEM results are highly transferable since the narration techniques and tutorials may be transferred to a plenty of different domains such as: social and demographic investigation, psychology research, and so on."

Ceramic-ally project aimed at teaching and learning techniques including pottery decoration as a tool for training and social integration and as activities leading to inclusive learning environments.Ceramic-ally partnership addressed training actions for non-EU citizens or newly-arrived migrants and asylum seekers, it developed training paths for an inclusive educational approach in VET.Teachers and staff of organizations participating in this project on the basis of their previous individual experiences identified tools and work placement methods. These approaches were based on achieving work based learning, and producing tangible joint outcomes, training material and tools. The final products designed are easily accessible to trainers and teachers in other EU countries.The partnership chose ceramic as the central topic of the project with the purpose of exchange good practices, because working with clay offers the opportunity for each individual to participate in a practical creative process. The kind of group learning activity was relevant to the acquisition of social skills. It generated a feeling of wellbeing by the easiness of getting along well with others. It enabled communication and could even develop a sense of citizenship. The primary goal was to allow partner organizations to develop and reinforce EU networks for teaching and learning ceramic craft, increasing trainers and staff capacity to work at transnational level, sharing and exchanging ideas, improving knowledge about practices and ceramic crafts methods and inclusive teaching techniques. The partnership also produced tangible outputs such as: a video of the ceramic course implementation, an e-book on the workshops held in each partner country, and collective creations of objects that represent the partner country in the idea of the participating target groups. The objects created in the workshops were filmed and photographed to form a virtual exhibition on the project website that also documented the audience on how working the clay could be used as a means for inclusion, to share the culture of people with diverse background.The project partners were all actors involved in VET field. The partners came from PL, EE, PT, MT, IT, and most of them had already gained experience in the Program Erasmus +. One partner was a newcomer, but had experience in the specific field of CERAMIC craft. Working with ceramics has a value recognized historically worldwide: many migrants arriving to Europe know this craft. The project emphasized the relationship between the artisan/artist and his/her creations. It highlighted the real sense of “handmade” products and enhanced the development of creative abilities while fostering social inclusion. Our goal was to provide an occasion for Intercultural exchange through which mutual cultures, of locals and immigrants, can be known and valued. The workshops carried out at a local level in each participating country motivated migrants and people from disadvantaged groups to meet and learn together in a collaborative way and to acquire knowledge of rules and habits of their hosting societies in a direct and informal key. The project reached relevant stakeholders of local communities in the world of ceramics and crafts. These had already been identified at application stage. They were involved in local activities and brought their knowledge of traditional pottery techniques. There were different layers of evaluation which were implemented in the project. There were aspects of self-evaluation and of external evaluation. At local level: we established a network among trainers, associations and experts to work further on the topic, to share experiences. At regional level: we established a network among labor market access departments, employment centers, commerce chamber, ceramists local associations, arts and crafts associations, representatives of language schools for learners of a second language, local decision makers about immigration policy. All partners have plans to use the project resources and the exchange of good practices. All partners contributed on local and national dissemination to make the European project results visible through the project website. All contributed to build the Ceramic-ally network. Tools for dissemination: a website, a video about CERAMIC-ALLY training course, e-book, logo and brochure about Ceramic-ally, common mural of tailes, as well as a Ceramic-ally exhibition with visual boards.Ceramic-ally networking created a long-lasting tie between participating countries.