"<< Background >>Today's youth, in addition to the problems that young people have faced for centuries, must additionally confront two obstacles to their sustainable development. Like the mythical serpent Uroboros, the current situation of climate change and rising youth unemployment are devouring each other.Poland ranks on the infamous list of European countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the last year measured, 2018 (Eurostat, 2021). The European youth unemployment rate has doubled in recent years, rising continuously since 2008 - the last great economic crisis. Now we are preparing for another crisis, and each new one weakens our societies more and more. Little is still being done to combat climate change, not to mention the fact that mere prevention may no longer be enough - what humanity and the planet need is a complete overhaul of the economic system and what we put at the heart of our concerns - it is time to knock profit off its pedestal and put the good of society and the planet in its place. Only in this way will we give ourselves and our young people the chance to live life to the full and develop sustainably. Therefore, one of the most desired competences among the youth is sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, and a crucial role in building them should be played by education, also the informal and non-formal one, because of the lack of sufficient offer in this field in the formal education (so far only Italy has introduced compulsory formal education in the field of climate changes in Europe, and the research of the Human Capital Balance for the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development proves that despite unemployment, over 3/4 of employers experience difficulties in finding candidates who meet their expectations. In their opinion, young people lack such competences as: independence, entrepreneurship, showing initiative, resistance to stress and motivation). Moreover, key competences for lifelong learning according to the ""Key competences for lifelong learning - a European reference framework"" include entrepreneurship.All this said, is European entrepreneurship ready for an ecological transformation? How to work with the youth with the competences they lack? How to finance green projects? What are the barriers to development in this direction? How to get young people interested in environmentally and socially responsible projects? How to avoid green-washing? What can be done to ensure that pro-environmental behaviour - both by young entrepreneurs and their potential customers - is not just superficial, but involves a real and deep concern for the environment and society?Instead of looking on passively, our partnership (3 Non-governmental organisations: Oczy Szeroko Otwarte, OSO, from Poland, Foundation of Knowledge, FK, from Hungary and Platform for Alternative and Sustainable Solutions, PASOS, from Spain) chooses action. We intend to achieve these seemingly mutually exclusive goals by taking as our starting point the two main solutions we have detected: permaculture and entrepreneurship, and combine them into the present project titled ""PermaCOOLtura"".Entrepreneurship is an alternative path to the traditional career path that allows for financial independence and through which the risk of social exclusion is minimized. Unfortunately, young people are often discouraged from embarking on it by a lack of appropriate tools and knowledge, even though they are willing and curious about it. Permaculture is still a very little known topic among young people. Consequently, the tools and systems it offers, which can be successfully used by young entrepreneurs in their initiatives, regardless of their subject matter, are unknown.<< Objectives >>Among the many problems affecting young people, two seem particularly pressing: unemployment and climate change.Our 3 organisations have decided to implement the PermaCOOLtura project to counter both problems with 2 main solutions: entrepreneurship and permaculture.Permaculture is the discipline of designing a sustainable environment in all its dimensions: social, economic and ecological, based on 3 pillars:-Taking care of the Earth-Taking care of the people-Sharing the surplus This field is still not very well known in Poland, especially in our Świętokrzyskie Province: according to https://mapa.permakultura.edu.pl/ and our own research and observations, right now there are no permaculture projects in our region, no trainings or even volunteering related to this topic: we wish to fill this gap by training our youth workers and offering free PermaCOOLtura workshops to the Świętokrzyskie region’s youth.On the other hand, the so-called ""green entrepreneurship"", according to the Ngo.pl portal, is an opportunity to build a competitive advantage for social enterprises, and creating an offer based on ecological solutions, which are still not very popular in our country but, according to the portal, will certainly grow in popularity, is a good idea for development. In addition, the growing popularity of networks among management professionals has also been observed in recent years, mainly due to the dynamic development of the so-called network interaction primarily ""innovation-oriented, i.e. interaction in an innovation network. Interaction is a positive influence."" (Case study of an inter-organisational network in the environmental goods and services sector, Sulich A., 2020).Our project fits into this idea through the following Objectives:Objective 1: To increase knowledge about permaculture, entrepreneurship and climate change initiatives among project participants, youth workers from our organisations.Objective 2: To increase youth workers' awareness of the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Specific Objective 2.1: To increase the awareness of youth workers from our organisations on the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Specific Objective 2.2: To increase awareness of youth workers from outside our organisations about the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Objective 3: To raise awareness among youth workers of the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work.<< Implementation >>The urgent need for a 'green' transition has never been more apparent: 2020 is the year the Arctic melts faster than most climate studies have been predicting, a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature perilously alarms that nearly two-thirds of the world's wildlife has been destroyed since the 1970s, and one of the consequences of it is the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis, with not only sanitary but also economic and social repercussions and needs for change.Europe is not unaware of those trends. With the Green Deal policy, it reached an agreement, committing to implement the Paris Climate Agenda and make the continent climate-neutral by 2050. However, as the World Economic Forum points out (2020), the pandemic has made key actors in all sectors realise that this change needs to happen much quicker and that action is required now to achieve a much more sustainable, climate-neutral and adaptable economy. By devoting more than 20% of its recovery plan to the green transition, compared to 1-3% for similar purposes in the programmes of the other major economies of the world, the European Union is on the way to fostering a new, more social and greener entrepreneurship. Businesses sector representatives themselves are also supporting this trend: in spring 2020 they formed the CEO Action Group for the Green Deal recognising the value and importance of the Green Deal as a strategy for sustainability and the direction it sets. The International Energy Agency has also demonstrated that green transition just in the sector of energy could create millions of job vacancies. This new business group has also called on EU to strongly build recovery strategy on sustainability, closed-loop and sustainable economies, whereas helping entrepreneurs on their path to green transformation. Secondly, the group needs also to demonstrate how the entrepreneurs can play its transformative role in a range of initiatives in sectors including services, renewable energy, construction, mobility or food.Also in Poland, in March 2021, B.Ryszawska, Ph.D., author of the book ""Green economy - theoretical foundations of the concept and measurement of its implementation in the European Union"" reminded that the EU plan for 2021-2027 is the largest ever injection of funds for the development of the Polish economy to help rebuild the EU after the pandemic and to support investments in... environmental and digital transformation. Of the subsidies in the National Recovery Plan, at least 37% will go towards the goals of ecological transformation, including adaptation to climate change and the protection of biodiversity, and these activities must contribute to achieving the EU's climate goals (zero carbon by 2050). The Union is also betting on support for Polish SMEs and micro businesses that want to invest in green technologies.In our Partnership, we believe that young people will play a key role in this process, therefore we want to contribute by training them and inspiring them to act in this direction. To achieve this, we will carry out activities such as:-Selection of participants-Language preparation-Pedagogical preparation-Preparatory meetings1. Project meeting Spain2. Project meeting in Hungary3. Project meeting in Poland-Study visit in Poland-Course in Spain-Development phase of the Result (interactive book) and its testing-Dissemination campaign-Transfer of knowledge and tools-3 dissemination events, one in Poland, one in Spain and one in Hungary-Consultation period for other NGOs, youth workers and institutions outside the Third Sector that will want to implement the materials provided in the book.Intern workshops: Each organisation will organise 2 in-house workshops, during which the participants of the project will communicate its results, best practices and tools to the rest of the team of each NGO.PermaCOOLtura workshops: free workshops for young people from each of our 3 communities.<< Results >>The project aims to provide youth workers with innovative teaching materials to use permaculture and use it to design sustainable initiatives and support green entrepreneurship in any field. The techniques for designing and implementing initiatives learned during this project will be transferable to youth workers in the future, through their transfer to young people in their communities, as well as collaborating on new initiatives with the organisations involved.Access to these learning units will be easy and free of charge, so that any young person or youth worker can benefit from this high quality information.It is also expected that the project will contribute to the acquisition of skills necessary for entrepreneurship by young people and youth workers, such as:-Improved knowledge and skills in developing sustainable projects.-Improving interpersonal relationships.-Improving teamwork.-Improving problem-solving and decision-making skills.-Preparation for entering the labour market.-Improving innovation skills.-Improving motivation and self-esteem.Regarding people from disadvantaged backgrounds, the project will also produce the following results:-Faster identification of personal and social difficulties in entrepreneurship.-Better visibility of initiatives.-Faster coping with stress.-Development of social and intercultural skills."

PASOS (Spain), together with Oriel (Italy), BWNGO (Egypt) and BRAVO (B&H), created the DREAM AFTER COVID project proposal, that aims to foster entrepreneurship in youth in the post - COVID society, as a way of increasing their inclusion and civic participation. During this project, the participants will learn to create and manage socially sustainable projects, acquire capacities in democracy management, innovation, collective intelligence, resilience, participative leadership, etc. and will become more active as citizens. The objectives of this project, and activities designed for achieving them, are:TO ENGAGE youth workers and youngsters in the creation of social projects that contribute to the COVID-19 recovery processTraining course in Egypt: 5 youth workers/ organisation will take part in the Dragon Dreaming principles and the Introduction to Innovation training.Local Workshops: Given to the young people by the participants of the Course in Egypt, to transfer the methodology acquired.Online mentoring: Given to the participants, divided in 5 teams. Each team will choose their social project and work towards its development, advised by the mentors.TO CONNECT youth workers and youngsters with fewer opportunities across the participating countriesCreation of the Interactive Brochure: The participants will create the Democracy Tools that will be documented in the Brochure. It will also contain entrepreneurship tools and details of the projects developed by the participants.Youth Exchange in Spain: 10 young people and a mentor/ organisation will share their projects and the experience gained while developing them.TO EMPOWER youth communities with the DD Methodology for the creation of sustainable projects being respectful with our planet, with our society and with themselvesDissemination Campaign: The outcomes of the project will be transferred to youth communities through Conferences, social media and website communication and Internal Workshops.

"PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) carried out by a consortium overseen by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) is the largest international test of students' skills in the world including mathematics as one of the basics of teaching level assessment where Poland is on the 18th position among the countries studied and needs innovation to improve this position. According to the report ""Teaching Mathematics in Primary School"" of the Educational Research Institute in Warsaw, although the syllabus is an important condition for high quality mathematics teaching, it is not sufficient and the substantive and methodical skills of teachers and the quality of teaching aids play an equally important role. This research also revealed the lack of comfortable mastering mathematics teaching methods among teachers and the adoption of concepts compatible in every detail with a textbook without a creative approach to the use of mathematics in the students’ daily life.In response to this situation, within the project ""MathemaTIKs for Primary School teachers"" we will develop innovative tools and methods to facilitate the teaching of mathematics in a motivational manner, allowing to balance the development of accounting and algorithmic skills with developing creative reasoning skills not only in our country, but also at the level of the entire European community.In order to achieve this, three members of our Strategic Partnership, Polish Primary School Klasyk in Puławy, Latvian Primary School Skibes and Spanish non-governmental organisation PASOS will conduct research and training in teaching methods and best practices promoting effective education in our countries and facilitating the achievement of intellectual outputs (book, short didactic films and e-learning platform).The study visits will take place in Poland, Latvia and Spain, and the intellectual outputs will document the results of our work and ensure the availability of developed methods and tools for all interested teachers. In order to properly implement the ""MathemaTIKs"" project, we have also planned 3 international project meetings: Kick off, an intermediate meeting and an evaluation meeting, and three multiplier events, one in each of the partner countries.We expect that the project will help to improve the quality of mathematics teachers' work in primary schools, and, therefore, the process of acquiring knowledge among the students. Teachers participating directly in the project will increase their ability to carry out research, introduce innovation, create teaching materials and improve their language skills which will also improve their ability to work in an international environment.Through an invitation to participate in the study visits issued to other educational institutions and local and regional organisms, the Strategic Partnership will strengthen its international network of contacts which will allow the project to have an increased impact and enrich it significantly. Our European activity will also improve and result in the promotion of further development and implementation of Erasmus + projects aimed at introducing innovative improvements in the teaching system."

"“Mathematics Education in Europe. Common Challenges and National Policies” study by The Education Committee of the EU Mathematical Society (ECEMS), states that EU students often lack basic mathematical skills. According to a PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report, their achievement is below the average of the EU neighbouring countries and in developed countries, in general. Norway and Estonia are in positions 14 and 4, respectively, and are aware that innovation of the methodologies is required to reach better positions. Spain (PISA’s 25th position), however, needs to improve dramatically, in basic mathematical skills. ECEMS, the TEDS-M and the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences, throughout their studies, blame the insufficient teachers’ mathematical knowledge, especially at the primary level, pointing out the need to enhance their mathematical and pedagogical content knowledge. This will improve the quality of elementary school mathematics and is particularly recommended: “in countries like Spain in which primary education programs prioritise teaching and learning of general pedagogical content”. ¨Current issues on Mathematics Education around Europe"" indicates that the right math foundations acquired at an early age, help students to understand and manage reality, develop their skills and performance, throughout their academic and daily lives. With all this evidence, it is clear the need for teachers to acquire innovative tools that will enable them to give their primary students a solid foundation. The EU Commission mentions in this study a number of measures to address the low achievement of students. Among them: -Connection of mathematics with everyday life and -Motivating students in education For this reason, Norlights Montessoriskole Stavanger (Norway) has decided to undertake the “MATH-OOLS” project, in collaboration with PASOS NGO (Spain) and SINDI School (Estonia). The project was aimed to create innovative tools to teach mathematics, in a more efficient, stimulating and successful way, for primary school students and make them more accessible to public education. These tools can be applied in countries seeking innovation, as well as in those that urgently need to improve their students' performance. Project Objectives: 1. Several teaching techniques and resources that are used by Norlights Montessoriskole Stavanger, PASOS and SINDI were researched. 2. Development of avant-garde methodology strategies for teaching Maths in Primary grades. 3. Transmitting the produced pedagogical strategies to the Primary faculty. 4. Boost each country’s educational system, by invigorating the relationships and cooperation with educational institutions, at all levels (regional, national and European). In order to achieve the above: Best Practices and Math Teaching Methodologies of each organisation were transferred, during each of the 2 planned 3-day Participatory Visits (Norway and Estonia).Norlights Montessoriskole Stavanger organised and led a Training Period, which was attended by 2 teachers sent by PASOS, to comprehend the methodologies and educational models used in Norway; they were upon the existing knowledge and evaluated their findings, in situ. During the 9 days-Course in Spain, PASOS transferred their Best Practices and methodologies and showed the 12 participants the educational model functioning in Cantabria and Spain.The Strategic Partnership used the activities listed above to gather new mathematics teaching methodologies and tools; that were transferred to primary school teachers, through the intellectual outputs developed: an interactive book, 21 didactic short films and an E-learning platform. Expected project impact: PROJECT PARTICIPANTS Better teaching quality, which in turn made our students’ learning process more efficient; Improved research, innovation and linguistic abilities to work in international environments. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP New tools and methodologies put the participating organisations at the forefront of mathematics teaching.Norlights Montessoriskole Stavanger Creating new methodologies and tools gave us the advantage of an innovative institution; which reflects not only in mathematics but in other subjects, too. PASOS They provided better service to math teachers (locally and nationally), who in turn were able to improve their students’ capabilities, performance and grades (especially those attending public schools). SINDI By familiarizing themselves with mathematics as a socio-cultural knowledge, their students improved their capacity for facing and solving daily problems. TEACHERS Their mathematics teaching skills and methods became more efficient and innovative; they were able to inspire and stimulate their students to achieve their goals SYSTEMIC Acquiring a strong mathematical foundation early in life granted students optimum academic performance, raising their confidence and reducing the risks of leaving school."

<< Objectives >>OP1. Perform investigations on a variety of math and geometry teaching approaches, pedagogic resources, and tools utilized by MATEI, KK and PASOS.OP2. To create instructional strategies and didactic resources in teaching geometry to kids aged 6 to 9 years old in elementary school.OP3. To equip primary school teachers with geometry techniques and didactic resources in order to provide high-quality geometry instructions.<< Implementation >>The main activities to be implemented are:*Participatory visit to RO & BG to exchange Geometry tools and methodologies for primary schools.*Book documenting the GEOKIT methodology*Course in Spain aims to transfer the GEOKIT tools and methodologies*Multiplier Events in each partner country*Consultations during 2 months for stakeholders who want to deepen their knowledge on GEOKIT *Internal workshops in each organization to disseminate the project`s results, the tools and methodologies.<< Results >>GEOKIT provides new creative tools for teaching geometry that will:-Reinforce teachers’ training & education, their ability to operate in interdisciplinary settings, linguistic abilities-Improve kids’ motivation to study geometry-Teach kids to use emotional management techniques-Diminish learning inequities-Improving the efficiency via high-quality resources-Improve the profile of education professionals-Improve the elementary schools’ level of geometry instruction