Many migrants in Europe face social and economic exclusion because of their nationality, social status and/or religion in their country of residence. Unity in Community develops new inclusive adult education methods and courses in the area of active citizenship that enable to connect the local population within a country with migrants. By doing so, Unity in Community uses the topic of sustainability as a framework to promote and enable community projects which are going to be implemented by locals and migrants from one community. The project will be international collaboration of partners from Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. The partners from Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are involved in community projects with migrants in different areas (skill-sharing, intercultural dialogue, peer2peer learning). The partner from Austria is an environmental organisation running education programmes for community projects without including migrants so far. Objectives of Unity in Community are+to train adult education staff and develop appropriate methods to improve their mentoring skills for community projects+to create a methodology that can be implemented by the project partners and picked up by further adult education institutions or NGOs, dealing with the topics of inclusion and sustainability+to develop trainings that will qualify people to mentor and set up community projects that can be easily implemented locally all over Europe+community projects and activities to become more inclusive and sustainableThe participants directly involved in the project process are going to be1. adult educators of participating organisations, actively involved in local community building2. leaders from both migrant and non-migrant background3. adult educators outside participating organisations , social workers, NGO workersInternally, 8 adult educators will be involved, recruiting up to 30 directly involved participants from target group 2 and 3. By testing our methodology via community projects we will reach at least 100 people in the first phase of the project. In the phase of training and dissemination we want to reach 500 people directly who will act as multipliers in order to reach at least another 10.000 people indirectly through dissemination events. Supported by our media channels, we will cover a range of at least 80.000 through the partner organisations ' networks.The project will involve participants, who have great ambitions but lack the means to acquire proper training in the field and are motivated to start their own initiatives on a community level. Additionally, we use the project Unity in Community as a tool for motivating people to set up inclusive initiatives in their communities who have the potential of doing so, but have not identified the initial idea yet or lack of contacts to like-minded people.Through the development of a mentoring methods for adult educators and trainings for multipliers, we will foster inclusive and sustainable approaches on how to work with migrants and locals on community level. In the 25 months lasting project process, the consortium will+ set up a study in order to establish the following activities on a scientifically proven basis+ develop a methodology for adult educators in order to qualify them for mentoring sustainable community projects (target groups 1 and 3)+ design and conduct a capacity building training for qualifying people to conduct community projects on their own (target group 2)+ create a handbook and a video tutorial in order to make our results public and guarentuee open access+ implement 4 multiplier events in each participating country in order to disseminate the results to a maximum degreeUnity in Community will obtain the following results:+adult education organisations dealing with community projects will be able to establish structured mentoring methods and capacity trainings within their adult educational programmes +having a mentoring method established in order to support community projects in a structured way, being distributed via a handbook and a video tutorial+adult education organisations being able to offer professionally developed capacity trainings to people interested in their community work+enhance community projects connected to the organisations’ goals The participating organisations will profit from professional development of the partner organisations’ adult educators staff in mentoring inclusive and sustainable community projects. The participants will be enabled to implement sustainable and inclusive projects themselves or deepen their experiences in the field and become inclusive leaders.As a long-term effect, migrants and non-migrants are getting better integrated in communities by profiting from adult education methods developed by the project. Sustainable projects will empower people to become active citizens and create diverse societies they want.

During the project, we have created a series of methods how to work with young people from migrant and refugee background to support their integration, develop their skills and enable them to fully participate in the societies of their hosting countries. These methods were developed during the study visits based on the individual know-how of different organizations and playtested in the local context (either as a single new activity or as a new approach to activities already organized by the organizations) and summarized in the booklet that was printed in four languages. In order to support the dissemination of these methods and the booklet, an introductory teaser video was created in three languages (Czech-Slovak, German and English) that promoted the booklet and the Project. Target group of this project are young people 14-30 from migrant, refugee and majority background and the organizations and youth workers working with young migrants. Each mobility was attended by at least 12 people from the target group. The principles of the project was to have people-centered approach, not the attitude “for you, but without you”. That is why, each mobility was attended by at least one person of refugee/migrant background per organization that was actively involved in the design of the methods and was present/participated/organized playtesting of the methods in the countries of their sending organization (depending on the level of their previous involvement, knowledge, skills and motivation). The project was an international collaboration of partners from the Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden and Slovakia that are working with refugees in different areas. Two organizations (Sweden - Jordens Vanner, Austria - Global 200) were from countries with substantial migrant experience; thus, the organizations were also very experienced and were connecting the issues of climate change and climate justice with migration; whereas, the other two (Syreczech - Czech Republic, Mareena - Slovakia) were from countries with little migrant experience; thus, these organizations had more bottom-up approach.New Beginnings project was for many participants unique learning opportunity not only to sensitize oneselves with issues, such as climate change, climate justice, environmental education, non-formal education, civic engagement etc, but also a possibility to shape the methods that were created, provide their input regarding the design of the methods and co-create these new strategies of involvement of young refugees and migrants.

<< Objectives >>Among European youth, there is a low level of financial literacy and, above all, a lack of understanding of the links between financial systems, sustainability and the climate crisis. The project therefore aims to create capacities for non-formal education and activating educational methods for youth on the topic of green financial literacy (GFL) for the first time. Civil society actors are thus given the opportunity to raise the level of GFL in Europe in cooperation with youth.<< Implementation >>First, organizations from the fields of youth, environmental protection & financial investment share their expertise & concept non-formal education formats.Next, a workshop is developed & youth is trained to hold and test it for its peers. Also methods, to encourage young people to engage for a raising the level of GFL, are developed with & evaluated & therefore implemented by young people.Finally all created expertise & experience is written down, published & actively disseminated in Europe.<< Results >>The project generates new expertise & innovative educational offers on GFL & implements them on a smaller scale. Thus, the project creates urgently needed & previously non-existent capacities in the youth sector. Through the proactive dissemination of experiences, methods & concepts, this expertise becomes usable across Europe. To strengthen this effect, the foundation for further networking to GFL is also laid. Thus, the project lays the foundation for increasing the GFL of European youth.

People’s understanding of the concept of biodiversity varies greatly. The situation of biodiversity in the EU 27 is not very positive. Even countries like Germany regarded as “pioneers” in promoting biodiversity are making hardly any tangible progress. According to the survey conducted by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, the consciousness of the concept of biodiversity did not change since 2005, oscillating around 25%. The TEEB-studies (http://www.teebweb.org) for different European countries show, that governments in Europe start to understand (and measure) different biodiversity aspects, as its value for people, but common understanding is generally weak and the fulfillment of EU strategies and regulations for biodiversity is extremely poor. These observations indicate a lack in the educational system on biodiversity, both in methodology and implementation. Therefore, in order to push changes, an important goal is to teach citizens about the meaning of biodiversity loss and the important issues related to it.How to raise awareness for biodiversity in European countries? One of the answers is to put in action more comprehensive pedagogical practices on biodiversity. Citizens need to find themselves at the heart of the debate, to become actors of change and be emotionally linked to the issue. They need to understand how the behavior of a single individual in the everyday life is strictly connected to biodiversity loss; this process will help to show options for acting. Education is a long-term project, and of course, this project can be based on decades of experience in many EU MS. What we want to provide is a synthesis of experiences from experts in several EU MS to produce comprehensive educational material on biodiversity. The developed tools will support educators to “Inspire People for Biodiversity”. Within the project, the following activities will be implemented: - State of the art & training analyses: Assessment of the training needs of citizens, their understanding of the topic biodiversity; the assessment of the pedagogical offer of available initiatives/tools on biodiversity. - Pedagogical programme setting & best practice exchange: Development of a programme covering 6 educational “focus areas” on biodiversity with regard to implementation in the everyday life.- Development of innovative pedagogical material and accompanying guide: Creation of a set of pedagogical materials taking into account current needs and developments in education on biodiversity: 30 tools in 5 “focus areas”. An accompanying guide will be provided to facilitate the use of the material. All tools will be tested within the frame of special events to collect feedback from both trainers and citizens.- Development of a set of pedagogical communication tools: It will include interactive educational posters, thematic video, webinar structure etc. for separate presentations of the theme as well as pedagogical materials, in particular for trainers and stakeholders working/planning to work on biodiversity education. This output will be complemented by dissemination activities throughout the project.- 12 Multiplier events for dissemination of project results in addition to general dissemination.The aim of this project is to develop a strategic partnership at European level in order to assess practices concerning the education of adults on biodiversity and to improve the quality and offer of such. The project aims to develop a set of innovative and successful pedagogical material on biodiversity and a specific guide to the attention of European CSOs and other stakeholders. The project will provide a tool kit for educators working on this topic, helping people to better understand the concept of biodiversity, the connection with daily life, and to increase the general level of consciousness on biodiversity. The materials developed will be available for broad public.The project contributes both to strengthening the educational work of individual organisations in respective countries and finding common solutions at European level. Cooperation is an opportunity to fundamentally change the situation. Launching a European project helps to improve and increase the means of action for stakeholders on this particular topic Europe wide.Humans highly depend on biodiversity: ecosystems and related services provide us with food, medicines and raw materials, deliver many other services. According to the European Commission, biological diversity is one of the main topics on EU-working agenda. The global biodiversity loss is stated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): 12,259 species are threatened with extinction, 75% of genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost, 75% of the world’s fisheries are fully or over exploited. In this context, it is urgent to implement effective measures and learn to deal with biodiversity, so that future generations can enjoy living in a diverse world.

By developing Action Bounds for mobile devices, teaching concepts, workshops and accompanying materials and by organising trainings and workshops, we want to develop methods for students and teachers to bring environmental topics (climate justice, environmental justice, food sovereignty, biodiversity) and selected SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) closer to the target groups in an innovative way, and we want to encourage and empower young people to become active themselves. We define our target groups as follows: students from 10 to 18 and biology, geography, religion and physics teachers from different schooltypes, who we want to support by offering them high quality digital content based on environmental topics. Almost all of the partners are environmental organisations from Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Malta and Bulgaria that bring in a great deal of expertise in this field . They are very experienced with environmental education and can help to reinforce key competences is this area. As environmental issues are more and more in the focus of the population, we as environmental organisations have the unique chance to join forces in order to prepare valuable content for students and teachers, and empower them to become active citizens. One key partner is a technology provider Actionbound, who will support us with their knowledge, competences and experiences to develop a fitting online tool. By using this digital tools, we also want to support teachers with ideas, how to easily include such tools into their lessons and to help to improve their digital skills. The use of mobile devices and the gamification increases the students' motivation and ensures that even children with fewer opportunities can discover their interest in environmental issues. The additional workshops and materials ensure that what has been learned can be well prepared and followed up by the teachers themselves or by the partner organisations.