"Erasmus+: Youth In Action Strategic Partnership project ""Promotion of Youth Services and Outreach Youth Work"" will be implemented for 12 months, from 1st July 2020 to 30th May 2021. Organisation Creative minds for culture (CMC) form Latvia, Center for Sustainable Community Development Association (CSCD) from Romania and Elektrenu kulturos centras from Lithuania have developed a cooperation in order to create methodological material for the development of outreach youth work with youth at risk.The challenges faced by the organizations highlight the need for outreach youth work implemented in environment where the youth is located. There are different forms of outreach youth work that can be used depending on the specificity of youth work in a given neighborhood. The project partner organizations aim to provide quality youth work and leisure activities for every young person. In ordert to bring changes at local level, there is a need of sharing expertise and developing competences at international level, what is important for improving the quality of youth work in EU countries. Project participants will develop their competences in outreach youth work, share their good practices and generally improve the quality of youth work in their area.During the project there will be organized 2 transnational partner organization meetings, a study visit ""Outreach Youth Work Practices in Rural Areas"" and a training course ""Outreach Youth Work and Promotion of Youth Work Services"" with the aim to develop methodological material ""Introductory guide to outreach youth work practices in rural areas"". The project will improve the quality of outreach youth work in Latvia, Lithuania and Romania by fostering access to services for youth at risk; will develop the competences of those involved in youth work through mutual learning and exchange of experience; will strengthen the capacity of youth organizations in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania working with youth at risk; will raise young people's awareness of the services available to them and of their use.Almost 50 youth workers, representatives of partner organizations, volunteers, formal and non-formal educators and those involved in working with youth at risk will participate in the project activities.The results of the project will have a significant impact in project partner countries, improving the quality of youth work with youth at risk and on a wider scale, through results that will be made publicly available online."

This year's health crisis has affected adults across the EU in an unprecedented way. The creative industries at the level of the consortium countries, as well as the people working in these fields, have been affected in particular. The proposed project is focused on acquiring professional skills for adults from RO, TR, ES and LV in two key areas of the creative industries: 1. Music / performing arts; 2. Intangible cultural heritage.The direct target group of the project consists of 96 artistically independent adults, and 40 stakeholders working in the creative industries. The indirect target group consists of 800 adults in the creative field, as well as 130,000 adults related to the general public (IO2, IO3 and IO4).The project is built on a complex architecture that includes 4 intellectual results, 4 blended training mobilities and 4 multiplication events, as follows:· Intellectual Results:1) Mapping the creative industry sectors and making four Country Reports;2) Making an international music album;3) Artistic management non-formal guide;4) Interactive online platform on intangible cultural heritage· 4 creative trainings (blended training mobilities) for people active in the field of creative industries in RO, TR, ES and LV, organized in each country of the consortium.· 4 events for multiplying the intellectual resultsThe objectives of the restART for ART project are:· Improving professional skills among 96 adults with financial difficulties in RO, TR, ES, LV, working in the field of independent creative industries (1. music / performing arts; 2. intangible cultural heritage), to identify new opportunities to promote the two creative industries in the context of the health crisis;· Raising awareness among adults in RO, TR, ES, LV on the importance of creative sectors for European cultural identity, with an emphasis on music / performing arts and intangible cultural heritage, by mapping disparate information in the field and producing four Country Reports;· Improving the access for 40,000 adults from RO, TR, ES, LV to the digital means of information regarding the intangible cultural heritage at the level of the consortium.The general impact of the project targets adults working in the creative industries in Romania, Turkey, Spain and Latvia, for which it proposes concrete solutions to improve professional skills to overcome the extremely difficult period generated by the health crisis. Short term, the project generates competencies for the target group directly, by participating in the 4 blended learning mobilities and by finalizing the intellectual results. In the long run, the project aims to extend the results to the general public, approximately 130,000 adults, through the operation of the online interactive platform on intangible cultural heritage, the use of the artistic management non-formal guide by adults and stakeholders in the creative industries.

The KA2 project “Youth worker training: Nordic approach” (Project no. 2018-1-NO02-KA205-001233) was implemented by “Medvirkningsagentene” (Norway) in cooperation with international partners: “Politikos tyrimu ir analizes institutas” (Lithuania), “Youth Society for Peace and Development of the Balkans” (Bulgaria), “Creative minds for Culture” (Latvia). The project was implemented from beginning of June, 2018 till end of May 2019. The project provided access to quality youth worker training methodologies, youth work practices and approaches from Norway to 3 countries which are on their path of youth work development and creating the understanding of quality in this field. The project also created space to share Bulgarian, Latvian and Lithuanian youth work practices. In the frame of the project we have organized:- 2 partner meetings, one in Latvia in 2018 and one in Bulgaria in 2019;- a study visit on youth work practices in Tonsberg, Norway, September, 2019. The study visit broth 19 participants from the 4 project countries;- 2 training courses for youth workers in Lithuania in January and March 2019. Each of the training courses brought 28 participants from the 4 project countries; The project partnership together developed:- 3 reports of the educational activities of the project;- an online publication to share methodologies used in the educational activities;- a research report on the impact of youth worker training courses on the participants;- partners together initiated Youth.Work.Matters campaign to advocate for youth work and youth worker professional recognition. The campaign will continue after the end of the project. Aim of the project was:To share Norwegian youth work training methodologies with youth work communities in Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania, provide youth workers with competencies needed for daily youth work activities. Objectives of the training course were:1. To show unique features of Norwegian youth traditions: youth work through cultural heritage, cultural expression, leisure time activities, dealing with social issues and mental health, participation.2. To develop competencies, defined in Norwegian youth worker training programs of participants taking part in the training courses.3. Develop understanding of quality youth work integral with European youth work values.4. To create youth work support system for quality international youth work in the project countries.5. To create space for cooperation of participants and ensure quality of future Erasmus + projects through developing common understanding of Youth project quality criteria: non-formal education, intercultural learning, active participation and etc.6. Contribute to the systemic recognition of youth worker competencies gained in non-formal way in Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania.7. Share various Norwegian methodologies used in youth worker training programs.8. To prepare multipliers to promote youth worker training programs and create guidelines and proposals for future youth worker training programs. Target groups of the project were:- youth workers;- youth work trainers;- civil servants dealing with youth issues;- managers of youth centers: project managers;- social workers and psychologist;- youth leaders and volunteers. The project was implemented transnationally aiming to use the benefits of different experience of partners, asses existing methodologies through international perspective.

<< Background >>We are living in an era where simple facts are not as simple as they seem to be at the beginning. So called post-fact era is at its beginning and nobody really knows what it will look like in the future. Fake news and disinformation are becoming mainstream and have impact on the future societies and electoral turnouts. Their main strength is the ability to adapt to the perception of online users. It's feeding the basic stereotypes and prejudices of online users. Fake news and disinformation are becoming a powerful weapon for extremists, foreign forces and third parties that are willing to influence the development of regions, countries, or international organisations. These negative messages are also changing the behaviour of the individuals in the societies, and they are becoming more and more polarized. Societies are turning back from the mainstream politics and media and they are becoming less critical to the context that they are reading. This trend was seen in the results from the Media Literacy Index 2019 and with comparison to the year 2017. CEE countries regress most with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland marked the biggest deterioration. They were followed by Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Hungary and Romania and Austria, Malta, and Serbia. The lack of critical and contextual thinking in the post-truth era also caused the gap and distrust between citizens. COVID-19 pandemic widened this gap and created a unique info-pandemic environment that affected all of us, but especially young people sitting at home in front of their computers, because of lockdowns and restrictions.The main aim of the project proposal is to debunk social bubbles that are emerging in the online sphere that are dividing our future generation. Our proposal is based on our former research project that develops a set of questions to uncover who is vulnerable to become affected by their own social bubbles created in the online sphere. With the help of these research deliverables and current data we will design a special set of training for young leaders, young community leaders and young public figures who are fighting in their local and national communities to fight with fake, misleading information and are guardians of true information in the post-true world. Our attention is also to develop and design an interactive web application that will help young people to check on their level of “bubble vulnerability” and to help them to understand the negative impact on them in real life. This will be also accomplished with an awareness campaign that will be designed with the help of young leaders and spread through their channels and followers.<< Objectives >>The right mix of existing research data along with innovative ways of learning helps young people to gain knowledge and encourages them to learn new ways to debunk the fake reality emerging in the social bubbles of the online environment. Creative classrooms and for this purpose of the project a web application can really transform the way young people are thinking and gaining knowledge on their performance in the online world, and how they can apply those learned / gained knowledge in their real life. The learning activities such as: online platform, web application and special course on debunking fake online reality in the social bubbles include awareness campaigns on the threat in the social bubbles, craft their knowledge and help them learn without having actual pressure of learning. Our intention is to build a creative environment where young people exchange ideas and gain information about potential threats that are emerging online in their own social bubbles. This project is built in a way that it promotes on one hand digital skills and on the other hand learning how to “survive” in social bubbles creed by own users and how to debunk negative impacts of them, and how to use them to spread knowledge and contextual thinking. Proposed and during the project created online tools (platform and web application) have the potential to give young people the freedom to explore the surroundings and learn new things from them. In general the project BATMEN expected to: raise knowledge of young people on digital knowledge and skills, and the way how to debunk / not be influenced by social bubbles in the online environment; promote contextual thinking among young leaders and freelancers that fight negative threat in the online environment; gain knowledge about how the social bubbles are working and design such educational materials, tools how to protect our young people towards their impact; Built an interactive online platform where young people have the opportunity to check their status on “how social bubbles are you” and to gain examples on how to not be affected and influenced to gain positive benefits and potential of the online environmen<< Implementation >>1. ΙO1 Bubble Debunk Boost Guide: The guide that will be demonstrating what are the barriers and threats of social bubbles and online behaviour of young people, and how to overcome them with the participation of questionnaire that will be distributed to 20 young leaders in respected areas of interests. In total, at least 90 will be involved in this phase of the project. (Total: 90 participants).2. IO2 Virtual web application “are you in a social bubble?: P1 will with the help of excited research data/ and questionnaires related to them design an online web application that will show potential participants - users of this concrete application the state of their “social bubbles profile”. We planned in the pilot phase to target 60 participants per project country. In total, at least 600 will be involved in this phase of the project. (Total: 600 participants).3. IO3 Learning platform for young leaders on how to debunk bubbles: based on the objectives, goals and the criteria of the output, the partners will identify the 5 young leaders which will be interviewed and on each topic concerning social bubbles. (Total: 35 participants).The project will have a great impact on the way young activists and leaders could operate in the online environment towards their fight against fake news, conspiracy theories, fake and alternative realities and news produced by social bubbles of users. It will also have an impact on young people in general, they will have the change and we think will because of their curiosity to make a test on “how social bubbles are them”. It will also have a great impact on partner’s networks including important organizations that would be able to disseminate the project's activities and will contribute in the efforts to raise awareness around this learning material.Last but not least, the selection of participants directly involved in the 6 multiplier events and the final Closing Conference in Spain that will be primarily facilitated by the available network of all 6 project partners consisting of young leaders/ freelancers, educators, organizations, initiatives providing not only educational support but also are involved in various activities leading to degunk and fight negative threats of the online environment.<< Results >>The BATMEN project is expected to have an overall impact on knowledge of young people in participating countries, and far more on how they should behave, look at their social bubbles and ensure themselves to not be “swallowed by them”. The proposed project promotes the implementation of interactive activities to increase youth participation and knowledge about various behaviours/ manifestations of all of us in the online world, and to foster their personal development as the most affected generation in the online world. Participating organizations involved, in various ways, in the project (members of the Partnership, but also others involved, either in a supporting capacity, or as organizations “interested in the project’s activities and outcomes, e.g.: various initiatives, associations, youth organisations, local and regional stakeholders), will benefit from learning how “best practices” work in other partner countries. They will follow closely the implementation of project activities and the delivery of main outputs, in particular the innovative training and organisation/ business benchmarking tools used during it. They will subsequently be able to replicate, easily and independently every single step. This same group will also benefit through the engagement with an EU network of partners. New contacts will be established, leading towards an internationalization of their activity, exchange of practices and familiarization with innovative mechanisms for local and regional development.Impact on young people in general:Acquired knowledge for exploiting further their vulnerability in the online world, Raising awareness for the required steps they need to follow in order to secure their online/ offline behaviour;Enable a full understanding about potential risk that are coming with their vulnerability to to swallowed by their own social bubbles;Access to online learning methods;Being able to seek assistance from professionals through the website and social media of the projectDevelopment of self-awareness about their abilities.Impact on youth leaders and freelancers:Improve the quality of training material and recommendation on how to debunk negative manifestation of online environment;Increase the professional competences;Anticipates them to recognize the need for the implementation and adaptation of new key competences.Impact on the Partner Organizations:Creating opportunities for exchanging experience, specific expertise and ideas, as well as expanding the network of contacts;Building and developing the capacity of organizations by accumulating constructive synergies of knowledge and experience;fine-tune and better prepare themselves for supporting disadvantaged groups through the development and implementation of learning models;Gain more relevant data from the web application on the behaviour of young people. Impact on the Other stakeholders:Considering ministries, governmental bodies, local authorities, private sector, civil society organizations, the expected impact is globally the understanding of significance of social bubbles and their impact on the behaviour, stereotypes of future generations, increase personal wellbeing and to foster active decision-making.