According to Eurostat, 54% of all tertiary students in the EU are women, but paradoxically the percentage of women holding a decision-making position is significantly lower: only 37% of the Members of the European Parliament are women, 6.3% of CEO positions in major publicly listed companies in the EU are women. In this regard, Young Women Leaders targets a number of problem areas defined in the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, envisaging actions aimed to promote civic engagement and foster leadership skills among young women coming from different socio-economic and cultural background. It will do so by offering the opportunity to take ownership in replicating capacity building methodology and up-skill their entrepreneurial, digital and leadership skills and stimulating them to regularly exercise civic engagement.In particular, the main aim of Young Women Leaders is to promote a new vision of women in 4 EU countries (Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden) by building the capacities of up to 60 young women, supporting them in developing pilot and raising-awareness initiatives addressing their peers and citizens, and in designing the first EU Young Women Network. The project will promote the concept of parity in all fields of society and especially in politics, economy and in decision-making, joining together three main aspects: education in the form of capacity building, raising-awareness about leadership and more gender balanced society, and network building and development. All project’s activities, results and outputs are linked to these aspects and support its rationale based on the development of a cooperation and coalition building model designed and tested by EU labs based in 4 countries and characterized by a strong interaction between young women, as drivers of the process, and NGOs, CSOs, local authorities and citizens as followers and multipliers.Main activities and results of the project include: 1. 4 needs assessment reports (1 country) based on the analysis of at least 25 interviews (5 per partner), 8 focus groups with at least 80 people (2 with at least 10 people per country), and 200 answers to the online survey2. A Capacity Building program involving up to 60 young women aged 18-30 (10-15 per country) as trainees. The program will deliver at least 50 hours of training per country. 3. Organisation of one International Academy. 4. Launch of specific pilot activities in all target countries/cities, engaging with citizens and specific stakeholders through activities aimed to promote women empowerment in policies and politics and the active engagement and participation for enhancing social cohesion of communities and cities within the concept and values of EU solidarity. 5. A Project Toolkit summing up the most important YOUNG WOMEN LEADERS outputs and activities.6. The YOUNG WOMEN LEADERS Digital Platform, joining together different materials and functions and ready to be used by other adult education providers and NGOs/CSOs for replicating the project’s methodology and actions. 7. Launch of the virtual EU Young Women Network, aiming to reach at least 200 registered members and at least 16 stakeholders (CSOs/NGOs/Associations and public authorities). 8. One final international conference bringing together at least 50 participants.The project aims to achieve the following impacts:a) Local- Create a network formed by an engaged group of young women ready to up-skill their civic engagement and leadership skills, in order to combat gender inequalities in their community and beyond.- Inspire a different way to fight youth women disengagement, more focused on their active involvement, giving them an opportunity to replicate capacity building training and take ownership to improve self-confidence and more tangible skills (e.g. entrepreneurial and digital skills).b) National- Boost the growth of the new generations and of the country as a whole, by enhancing the project's cooperation model based on the collaboration between young women, trainers, stakeholders and local communities.- Find new ways to promote women engagement, starting from showcasing a local initiative and going through an assessment of how to scale this up, and having the possibility to translate this approach into policies.c) European. - With the support of partners, young women will work on creating a EU Young Women Network (currently not existing) aiming to gather together different youth women organisations based in EU countries/cities or even to develop such organisations at EU countries’ level. - Through the extensive network of the partners, the project is aimed to reach initiatives and organizations (such as the Brussels Binder, Young Feminist Europe, European Women’s Lobby, Association Femme d’Europe), with a view of joining the EU Network, looking for concrete and creative synergies with other organisations working for gender equality and women empowerment and engagement.

According to the most recent Eurostat data on the topic (2018), millions of Europeans are still on the side-lines, both from the labour market and from social inclusion and integration. In particular, in the EU, only 11.1 % of adults participate in lifelong learning opportunities, thus resulting not up to the height of the current labour market demands or not able to up-skill and give themselves another professional chance. Starting from this assumption, OPEN CITY aims to make learning and capacity building opportunities available to fragile and disadvantaged groups in the project countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy and Latvia), supporting the promotion and implementation of innovative and creative elements linked to creativity and self-expression into learning paths for unemployed people - to which formal academic opportunities are often precluded.In particular, OPEN CITY, wants to re-establish interactions and cooperation between adult unemployed (with previous work experience in social field, or looking for job opportunities in social field), local artists and social innovators, putting values and commons back to the center of human interactions between neighbours. It will do so by enhancing values, skills and social cohesion potential of specific street in disadvantaged districts of selected European cities leveraging upon art expressions and collaborative practices between citizens. In parallel, citizens will also be empowered in terms of artistic attitude, social activism and communication skills and competences, thus improving their employability. In this way, OPEN CITY will build a collective trust between inhabitants; empower them to acquire social and civic competences; and support the creation of sustainable welfare systems on micro-scales - i.e. a block of flats, a street, a specific area of a selected neighbourhood.The main participants in the project will be 100 adult unemployed over 30 years old (20 per each target city), who will be involved in a capacity-building programme aimed to increase their knowledge and skills for an enhanced participation in society and employability, via artistic and social-related activities, that respond to the needs and necessities of their territory. They will be supported by a heterogeneous network of: local artists, social innovators/entrepreneurs, project partners, local authorities.The project will produce the following activities and results: - 5 new city maps, based on local districts needs’ assessments, obtained through a data collection process mixing field visits, interviews and the organisation of 10 participatory workshops - A Capacity Building program involving at least 100 adult unemployed aged over 30 years old (20 per country) as trainees, and also including two International Academies- Specific pilot activities in all target cities. These will be socially engaged and creative art interventions which take the shape of site-specific services , which will blend together unoccupied but possibly aggregative spaces, with activities and professions that have the potential to bring people together and engage them socially. - A Project Toolkit summing up the most important OPEN CITY outputs and activities.- OPEN CITY Digital Platform, joining together different materials and functions and ready to be used by other adult education providers for replicating the project’s methodology and actions. OPEN CITY designs a school where ‘students’ work together with communities, using physical spaces that are considered inaccessible for public re-creative purposes. OPEN CITY believes in re-creative use and transformation of citizens’ skills and physical spaces. This is for us a bridge between creativity and society, by strengthening the interaction between the cultural heritage sector and other sectors.The main impact OPEN CITY wants to achieve is to give second chances to unemployed people, accompanying them to gain and express those skills which are necessary to fulfill the needs of the territory they reside in. The project asserts that exchange of knowledge and experience are mutual via creative interventions and socially innovative service - and will demonstrate that people from difficult backgrounds are well capable of bringing an added value to the society, if well guided. Its overall outcome, thus, is intended as a concrete result with multiple positive side-effects for the territory to be acquainted in the short, medium and long term (see next section for indicators).In the longer term, OPEN CITY foresees the creation and spread of a dedicated label among those realities that are touched by the project and its inspiring activities. As such, the label will put in touch communities which are geographically far from each other, but connected by the strong linkage of common experiences and shared values - above all, the necessity of integrative policies for marginalised people and power of alternative inclusive measures to this extent.

<< Background >>The economic and social integration of migrant population was only starting to show positive trends by 2019; for instance, the immigrant unemployment rate in the European Union decreased below 10% in 2019 and was only less than 4 percentage points higher than the one of native-born. Nonetheless, COVID-19 has reverted this trend, jeopardising years of virtuous inclusion policies and hitting already vulnerable populations which are left outside of mainstream support services. Indeed, The recent dramatic developments of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an unprecedented economic and social crisis in our times, and while we are yet to be confronted with its long-termconsequences, we have already started to appreciate the role of migrants in the functioning of our economies. As reported in the latest International Migration Outlook (OECD,2020), during the lock-down and beyond, migrants played a pivotal role in essential activities such as health care, agriculture, food retail and cleaning. On the other hand, they have also been disproportionately exposed to the economic consequences - working mainly on temporary contracts without social entitlements in the event of job or income loss (Scarpetta et al., 2020)For these reasons, WE-CAN aims at using social innovation as a way of countering this trend, by providing a hybrid collaborative space among different actors to support the creation of alternative narratives in terms of socio-economic inclusion. The main target of the project are unemployed migrants who will be activated and stimulated to use their skills and ideas to either start a social enterprise or to act as gatekeepers, by playing the role of community navigators. In either case, the reason is to unlock opportunities for meaningful inclusion to happen, by tapping into the transformative power of adult learning and into the collaborative support networks both at a local and at an international level. In particular, in the case of social entrepreneurship, it is widely recognised that self-employment can be an effective way to bounce back from an economic crisis and it becomes particularly relevant if it addresses existing social and/or sustainability issues and if it is able to fill market gaps. On the other hand, in the case of community navigators, their role is is thought to plug gaps in standardised (and therefore less flexible) or underfunded systems of mainstream support and is essential to reach the most vulnerable populations.<< Objectives >>Following the recommendations in the EC Action Plan on the integration of third country nationals (2016) and the EC Action plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027 (2020), WE-CAN aims to encourage migrant inclusion by means of social entrepreneurship and community development through tailored social innovation training and mentoring, developed thanks to a cooperation among stakeholders and experts coming from different sectors and countries.In particular, the specific objectives (SOs) are to: share experiences, information and best practices in terms of socio-economic inclusion for migrants, paying special attention to migrant women. This SO will be achieved building an international multi-stakeholder platform; jointly identify the market gaps and the challenges that the project will contribute to address and activate soft and project management competencies through an activation programme (lasting 30 hours), an incubation programme (80 hours) and hackathons aimed to enhance the skills of the project participants; promote migrant entrepreneurial endeavours as a response to identified market gaps and launch community engagement actions aimed at improving their socio-economic inclusion, sense of belonging and interaction with local communities; establish the role of community navigators, thus to maximise the use of available socio-economic opportunities and create new ones. The programme will be piloted with migrants in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Germany, in order to test its effectiveness and will also be shared with key stakeholders at the national level ensuring their understanding, adoption and recommendation of the platform within key learning environments (job centres, learning institutes, cooperatives etc).<< Implementation >>WE-CAN aims to create a well-structured and possibly long-lasting inspiring and empowering environment for its participants; to reach this goal will propose and adopt an incremental path of involvement and activation, to follow and implement the common thre underlying its various phases. Participants will be supported by local multi-stakeholders platforms established in the first task, among which the coaches and mentors will be selected, and their activities will be targeting market gaps identified through a local review. Following these tasks, there will be a comprehensive selection of participants, who will be then involved in the capacity building through the common phases of activation (task 2.2) and explore (task 2.3) and the specialised track either for social entrepreneurship (task 3.1 and 3.2) or community navigators (tasks 4.1 and 4.2). This training will give them the necessary capacities and boost their social/creative attitudes in order to engage with social innovation; in particular, this phase will provide them with new or revised tools to start re-shaping their personal and professional profile as well as boosting their life skills. Relevantly, they will also be digitally up-skilled - i.e. provided with lessons and insights on the use and importance of basic spreadsheets, presentation and text files, social media platforms and networks, online branding, “digital” profiles for public presentation, opportunities and threats within use of social media, the role of influencers and fake news. It is to report that this capacity-building path will count upon the involvement of members of the multi-stakeholders platforms as additional trainers and mentors for specific sessions. In practical terms, the content of such a training path will increasingly make the participants prepared for the societal and labor market they will face during and after the project in each of the professional pathways chosen. After the capacity-building activities, participants will be actively involved in the engagement campaigns (tasks 3.3) and in the networking labs (task 4.3), opportunities to test their acquired knowledge, share their competencies, ideas and work and boost their employment opportunities. This will also be a chance to open up to local communities, in a two-way process of local needs’ fulfillment and mutual enrichment. Therefore, participants in the project will also play a key role in the implementation of the dissemination activities as they will be the main actors of the engagement and networking local activities, where they will have the possibility to present to a wider public the results of the project. Finally a Curriculum for the role of Social entrepreneurs and for the role of Community navigators will be published.<< Results >>The project aims at seizing the integration capacity that stems from the interaction between different members of a community, working together to find solutions for the common problems they share in a given territory. This constitutes one of the main pillars of WE-CAN that will be designed and tested in the implementation sites. The second outcome of the project focuses on enhancing the entrepreneurial capacities of migrants as active members in their communities and empower their role in the society. Through a training support mechanism, the participants will reinforce their skills to pursue alternative pathways and innovative solutions to common challenges in their host territories. The whole mechanism foresees different occasions of collaboration between the participants and the receiving communities (represented by citizens, local authorities, NGOs, CSOs, companies, etc.), which will have, as an indirect outcome, a reduction of the cultural and social barriers between the different groups, and a stronger sense of belonging and integration within the host society. Contextually, to strengthen this collaboration, the community navigator role will be introduced and taken up by some of the participants who will be trained to implement an asset-based approach to socio-economic inclusion and community welfare by recognising the roles, talent, and expertise of their fellows, via innovative and non-formal experiences. In this way, they will not only contribute to solving social and green challenges, but they will also enhance soft skills pivotal to improve their (self-)employability opportunities. Furthermore, by providing a toolbox of information about social and sustainable entrepreneurship, even the migrants who will not wish to pursue the entrepreneurship career, they will gain practical knowledge to be used at a later stage or to be transferred to other sectors. From a broader perspective, another expected outcome is the creation of a European-wide multi-stakeholder platform and the certification of the role of community navigator with a special focus on migration. Indeed, the project has been conceived for being carried out and implemented at two levels: a European one, where partners will exchange knowledge, transfer practices and ensure creation of a coherent and impactful EU capacity-building and empowerment model, anda local one, where each partner will design and deliver a new methodology of inclusion of migrants as a practice to be included in formal and non-formal integration measures and mechanisms.In terms of results, the project is set to achieve the creation of two pathways of socio-economic inclusion whose scaling is supported by a dedicated curriculum and by the presence of national multi-stakeholder platforms which will be pivotal in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the results and their integration in policy-making.

<< Objectives >>The InfoReady project aims at preparing adults to become critical users of online information and empower them to critically evaluate social media and resist disinformation. Adults will be supported in conducting online media research and filtering fake-news content. A mobile application will be developed including readiness schemes for adults’ digital literacy and resistance to disinformation, as well as activities for adults to enhance digital literacy and disinformation filtering skills.<< Implementation >>Partners will implement the following activities:1.Design and development of a readiness scheme, curriculum to prepare adults for dealing with disinformation, as well as a platform and mobile application 2.Training of adult educators and adult learners on the effective support of adults towards developing resilience skills in relation to disinformation, through the readiness scheme and curriculum3.Development of Documentary to demonstrate the outcomes of the project and user testimonials.<< Results >>InfoReady aims at creating a resilient and misinformation-resistant society with citizens that are digitally savvy. It will enhance the capacities of adult educators to deliver online information literacy education using the InfoReady material and mobile application with adult learners. It is also expected that there will be a powerful exchange of good practices and enrichment of knowledge promoting the importance of using digital tools to enhance adults’ readiness to misinformation.

"<< Background >>Whilst cultural heritage has been defined as something inherited from the past, it is in many ways a contemporary and “living” cultural resource in Europe. Supporting and mobilising local actors facilitating society integration and social inclusion through the accessibility of cultural heritage will lead to an inclusive growth with a well-functioning democratic, inclusive society based on solidarity and equal access to culture and related services. Both the preservation and valorisation of cultural heritage open up considerable opportunities for local and regional development. Culture is a key driver of creativity, which plays a significant role in establishing an innovative economy.In European Union, only 10.8 % of adults (25-64 year old) participated in lifelong learning in 2019 (Greece 3.9%, Poland 4.8%, Latvia 7.4%, Italy 8.1%, Germany 8.2%, Portugal 10.5%). People with disadvantaged backgrounds have lower access to training and cultural activities, as it requires financial resources, information about the opportunities and many times also encouragement to participate. At the same time, according to a recent Eurobarometer survey, 8 out of 10 Europeans believe that cultural heritage is important, not only to them personally, but also to their community, region, country and the EU as a whole. A very large majority take pride in cultural heritage, whether it is located in their own region or country, or in another European country.Our organisations have solid experience in providing cultural and educational activities. Moreover, our organisations are focusing on the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds: people from declining rural areas, migrants and national minorities, elderly, among others. So far our activities have been implemented mainly in person, but in the last 2 years we have been working on the project idea of an online training programme focused on European intangible cultural heritage. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that our direction towards online training has been correct and more high-quality online training opportunities should be available in culture and arts.<< Objectives >>The project offers new high-quality learning opportunities and skills development for adults through creativity and arts by utilising the social and educational value of the European cultural heritage, facilitating intergenerational learning and encouraging new businesses based on cultural heritage. The project will create a training programme ""European Cultural Heritage"" and an interactive online learning platform (including an educational online game), which will exploit the European cultural heritage as a tool for creating new businesses, promoting society integration and social inclusion and combating disadvantages.The general objectives of the project are:1. To increase the accessibility of training in culture and arts;2. To raise the opportunities to explore European intangible cultural heritage by using digital means;3. To promote social inclusion of people with disadvantaged background through culture and arts;4. To encourage intergenerational learning and transfer of traditional skills;5. To motivate and empower people to start businesses based on intangible cultural heritage.<< Implementation >>During the project, two project results will be produced. The ECHO Training programme ""European Cultural Heritage"" will include a collection of workshops presenting the cultural heritage of each local area involved in the project and providing an opportunity to explore European cultural heritage for everyone, an online guide for starting entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship) based in cultural heritage and an interactive educational online game based on the training programme. The ECHO On-line learning platform will provide a learning space to be used by any organisation or individual all over Europe and ensure the sustainability of the project. The on-line platform will include the Training programme produced in the project (guide, workshop scenarios) and additional on-line learning resources, such as webinars, discussion forums and an interactive educational online game to facilitate continuing learning, keep the interest of the users and engage them in learning activities. The project results will be available in English, Polish, Greek, Italian, German, Portuguese and Latvian.The ECHO Training programme ""European Cultural Heritage"" will include local and international training and cover at least 56 hours (conceived as online and offline workshops and assignments). It will be delivered in each target country, in a time-span of 12 months. In total at least 90 unique persons will attend the online and offline training. The training programme will include at least 3 local workshops (online or offline) in each country. Additionally, a joint online course will be implemented by the partnership introducing each local areas cultural heritage (festivals, foods and handicrafts) to participants from other European countries. At the end of the course a special session will be devoted to starting a business (including social entrepreneurship) based on cultural heritage.In the final months of the project we will organise a short-term international training of learners in Portugal to jointly test the ECHO Training programme and On-line platform. Adult learners and trainers from all partner countries will take part in this testing. Additionally, we will organise an European cultural creativity competition, inspired by the ECHO Training programme. Having completed the work on the ECHO Training programme and On-line learning platform, we will organise local dissemination events in all partner countries/regions and final conference in Portugal.<< Results >>At least 15 adult trainers will increase their knowledge and skills during the project, 30 learners (people from disadvantaged backgrounds)will take part in the blended mobility and at least 90 participants (people from disadvantaged backgrounds) will take part in the piloting of the training programme. At least 205 people not directly involved in the project will benefit from the project in each country, participating in the dissemination events. The exchange of experience and the creation of an online platform will increase the accessibility of training, raise the opportunities to explore European cultural heritage, encourage intergenerational learning and transfer of traditional skills and motivate and empower people to start business based on cultural heritage. The transnational approach of the project will lead to a deeper mutual understanding and cooperation in Europe."