"""Start from where young people are"" is the youth worker's mantra, and what better place to start than by getting involved in action for the environment? Protecting the environment is important for 93% of European youths, 86,5% of them agree that they can play a role in protecting the environment but 68% of them also feel that citizens themselves are not doing enough to protect the environment - Eurobarometer ( 2017). Green youth's promoters wants to meet this will of active participation expressed by young people providing the youth organizations and their youth workers with needed background of knowledge, ability and skills that make them able to effectively promote and support young people's commitment in the environment protection field. This project represent a common path for the partner organizations where to start from the strong pillars of their previous experience till reaching innovation by the transfer of those experiences from their local context to the partners' one, collecting a fan of best practices created by and for youth workers able to improve the youth services in all the needed steps to support the young people desire of actively participate to the protection of their environment - from visibility and engagement of young people, to tools and methods to promote learning and awareness on environmental issues, techniques to work with young people, types and methods for effective green youth actions to be implemented in the natural environment and in the cities, till how to involve stakeholders and policy makers in those actions, how to make green youth work inclusive and how to support young people entrepreneurship, creating an unique model validated at European level and able to lead to European joint actions, where young people could go beyond their local area to start to think green at an European level. The project will have a duration of 2 years (June 2019 - May 2021); the main project activities will be 4 short-term joint staff training events, each partner organization will manage one of them, for 3 youth workers and/or volunteers from each partner organization (each staff training event will be followed by a phase of local activities for the application and experimentation of the learning outcomes in the partner organizations): they will drive the process of exchange of best practices among the partners, following a progressive path that will start from a theoretical preparation on environmental issues and actions of natural environment protection, passing through a deepening on team building and facilitation to inclusive volunteering, urban green actions and stakeholders' involvement. The partners collaboration will reach its climax with a blended mobility that will involve 5 young participants and an accompanying person per partner and will be held in Palermo with the aim to built a complete and effective non formal learning path on environment protection with a special focus on youth social entrepreneurship about in the green sector. The implementation of the project will be based on a collaborative approach among the partners so each one of them will be responsible of specific actions in order to reach the foreseen results for each project activity. The learning process of the involved youth workers and volunteers will be mediated by the participatory learning and peer based learning in the form of exchange of good practices and actual experiences, learning by doing, practical experimentation of the learning outcomes. The process of application and validation of the shared green methods and tools in youth work will allow to create useful and concrete tool-kit and reports that can be easily disseminated and used by other youth workers from all over Europe and beyond; the project will produce: a final digital booklet containing validated tools and strategies for youth workers' about how to act as ""green youth's promoters""; the periodical creation and publication of tools in the form of descriptions and reports; the creation of an e-learning course where the youth workers will train other youth workers on the project results. The project will have a strong personal and social impact on the participants in terms of knowledge and know how on the facilitation and visibility of youth green actions and campaigns, it will improve the quality of the youth work activities and services offered by the partners and it will strengthen their cooperation; the project results will represent a concrete support to the youth work of organizations and professionals and the youth, as target group, will gain in terms of active participation in the protection of their environment, development of tolerance and solidarity and higher sense of entrepreneurship. The actual application of the project results in the partner organizations, the concrete planning of follow-up joint youth actions, the support to young people entrepreneurship will ensure the sustainability of the project."

GreenACT is a 20 months’ project designed to enhance ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION and AWARENESS of YOUNG PEOPLE through the organisation of SUMMER SCHOOL PROGRAMME for making YP more familiar with the idea of environmental citizenship, based on the fact that the future depends on each one by acting responsibly and positively towards our environment and developing sustainable solutions for addressing environmental challenges. In a period where Earth faces the consequences of climate change and global warming crisis and the need for mitigation of climate change is emerging, Green-ACT aims to support further these YOUTH INITIATIVES and raise more awareness in the 6 countries, by educating young people on environmental issues, inspire them in developing a firm ecological mind-set, and invite them to have a positive impact in their communities as active agents. The partnership is composed of 6 partners from 6 countries: PL, IT, FR, CY, GR, TUFurthermore, it aims:•To promote the idea for establishing SUMMER SCHOOLS for raising young people’s environmental awareness•To set up the GreenACT MOVEMENT (a network of young activists) for coordinating their actions and engaging citizens;•to build/increase the capacity of partner organizations to take action regarding reducing waste in the partner countries by encouraging local communities to recycle and re-use.•to equip youth workers with new sustainable environmental skills in order to empower more young people•To facilitate brainstorming on challenges and possible solutions of topics such as alternative forms of socio-economy, biodiversity and food production, sustainable production and consumption, transport, etc. The objectives described above will be achieved through: IO1 GreenACT COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK FOR INCREASING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIORIO2 EDUCATIONAL PACK which will facilitate innovative learning practices based mainly on non-formal methods. IO3 Green-ACT CLOUD-BASED PLATFORM: for hosting the GreenACT MOVEMENT where young people and youth workers will use as a way of interacting, sharing information, experience, and knowledge and use it as an online source.IO4 TOOLBOX, for preparing an A-Z guide for SETTING UP the GreenACT SUMMER SCHOOLS, pilot testing of the developed IOs, and ensuring project’s exploitation and sustainability.The GreenACT project is expected to have a direct impact on:Young people 16-25 years’ old Youth Workers whose profiles will be strengthened through the new tools and resources to support the project’s implementation IMPACT ON YOUNG PEOPLE:•Be environmentally literate and able to address challenges in their communities;•Practice/develop further their creativity skills; •Better understand the meaning of recycling, reuse, reduce; •More committed to tackling climate change;•Improved skills and competencies related to green thinking;•Become part of a youth activist network – GreenACT MOVEMENT with an active role in shaping the environmental wellbeing of Europe. •Be more informed and aware of human impact on the environment;IMPACT ON THE YOUTH WORKERS•Equipped with new innovative educational tools (EDUCATIONAL PACK, TOOLBOX, VIDEO-TUTORIALS, PLATFORM) for raising young people’s environmental awareness and the sense of responsibility towards the environment; •Acquire experience in setting up and implementing a SUMMER SCHOOL for young people; •Improve their knowledge and skills regarding environmental issues and ways to reduce-prevent human impact on nature;•Better understand and recognise the benefits of adopting environmental behaviours;•Have increased opportunities/network for professional development with organizations and youth workers from other countries during the C1 activity;•Be part of the GreenACT MOVEMENT, an online community for exchange of knowledge and organization of actions with positive environmental impact;IMPACT ON PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS: •Better prepared for serving the community and raise the awareness of the significance of organizing actions for mitigating climate change; •Development of groups within the partner associations to build up and manage projects related to eco-citizenship, environmental awareness in their countries and transferring their gained expertise;• Enhanced skills of project management, especially in the youth organizations involved•Enriched cooperation and networking between local organizations with local authorities, informal youth groups, waste management companies, green organizations; The project will be carried out in 6 EU countries. The partners were selected carefully since they have common needs when it comes to the promotion of responsible environmental behaviours starting from young people. This transnational initiative will offer transferrable valid tools that will change youth’s attitudes, the important markers of long-term social change, and interests in other countries (in and out EU).

This project was about promoting education for sustainable development (ESD) and Global Citizenship (GC) in adult education. It aimed to develop a strategic approach and build capacity in education and training organisations by developing a competence frameworks for sustainable development and global citizenship to improve staff competences. The main objectives of the project were to: 1. Develop a sustainable development competency frameworks for (a) Adult Educators (b) Adults 2. Provide practical guidance to adult educators on approaches and methods of reflecting sustainable development and global citizenship in the core curricula 3. Produce teaching and learning resources in which sustainable development and global citizenship are embedded 4. Improve adult educators’ knowledge and understanding of sustainable development issues, and their pedagogic competence to deliver ESD 5. Mobilise social capital to promote ESD and global citizenship to adult learners 6. Improve the intercultural competence of participants. The project was developed against the background of what is arguably the largest set of complex and multi-faceted challenges that humans have ever faced including: climate change, depletion of natural resources, human rights violations, pollution, environmental degradation, the widening gap between rich and poor, food security, violent conflicts and the impact of globalisation. Following Agenda 21, Kyoto Agreement, COP 21, The MDGs and now (SDGs) countries have been working towards “sustainable development”, defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). Sustainable development efforts are now focused on achieving the 17 SDGs, and most countries have a sustainable development strategy, which stresses the important role of education in achieving the goals. Education was seen as having a key role to play in achieving the SDGs, not only in terms of informing and encouraging engagement with SD, but crucially, in acquiring the skills and competence to act and bring about the required changes in the social, economic and environmental domains of sustainable development. The need for ESD was exemplified by the fact that all EU member states have the equivalent of a sustainable development strategy, and ESD now forms part of the school curriculum in compulsory and in some higher and further education institutions. Main project activities included 4 Individual Outputs: ESDGC Competence Framework for Adults, ESDGC Competence Framework for Adult Educators, A Course in ESDGC for Adult Educators, Teaching Learning Resources in the form of embedded materials and Guidance for Adult educators. It involved two training activities of a week's duration for adults involving 20 participants and for adult educators involving 12 participants at which the two competence frameworks and the materials were piloted and evaluated. The overall feedback from the multiplier events was that the project would make a valuable contribution to helping adults understand some of major challenges facing us with training organisations, especially NGOs expressing an intention to engage more actively with the whole issue of sustainable development. One unexpected benefit or outcome from the project was the importance attached to role of digital skills in adult education in general and education for sustainable development and particular, and the need for adult educators to have digital skills so can include the use of digital technologies in the their teaching.

<< Background >>The negative human impact on nature demands from people, especially young ones to ensure, that caring for the nature, is part of their lives. It requires advancement of peoples’ awareness, attitudes and knowledge about these issues. Environmental education and awareness (EEA) is a relatively new field that is becoming increasingly more critical as our natural resources are falling apart day by day. Starting from an early age, EE should raise children’s awareness of the environment and provide learning experiences through which they obtain knowledge and skills to solve environmental problems now and in the future. While, the theory of generational replacement argues that changes in adolescents’ attitudes are important markers of long-term social change, the investment in their education in terms of enviromental protection has not recieved adequate attention. Often, children are not aware of the need for clean air and water, the conservation of natural resources and energy sources. EE needs to be integrated into the curriculum so that it is evident in daily activities and children internalize values and engage in eco-friendly behavior as a way of life. Today, only Italy, is the first country to make learning about climate change compulsory in schools in an attempt to position the country as a world leader in EEA. School education is a crucial stage in the development of a person's behaviour, social awareness and self-awareness. In 2017, a study conducted by Stanford University, aiming to investigate how Enviromental Education (EE) affects school students, showed, after researching hundred scientific studies published from 1994 to 2013, that 83% of students improved their ecological behaviour significantly and 98% scored better in other subjects such as maths and science. Furthermore, based on research, teenagers have tremendous influence over their parents and can use the acquired knowledge and skills to influence the attitudes and behaviors of adults, their parents and other community members. Teens today need to receive different information than their parents or grandparents did, as each generation differs in the kind of education need to be acquired. Information is growing so rapidly now, that sometimes children’s knowledge is more up to date than their parents.<< Objectives >>The ulitmate objective behind the B-Green project is for students(12-18) to develop a firm ecological mindset and use it to overcome today's environmental challenges with a proactive attitude and a strong commitment in their community. Furthermore, it aims:•To equip schools with innovative green oriented teaching and learning tools to support their efforts to becom ECO-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS, initiators of social change and sustainable development;•To upgrade teachers’ profile so that they can adopt interactive learning experiences that spark students’ engagement.•To encourage young Europeans to become activite citizens supporting their communities from an early age for social change while promoting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN;•To transform students as AMBASSADORS among their peers,friends, parents, teachers, other citizens so that others can follow their example;•To creat a community of “green” conscientious young people working on sustainable solutions for addressing environmental challenges;<< Implementation >>The project foresees to focus on the following groups:- Secondary School teachers from different fields of expertise - Secondary School students (12-18 yrs) - Parents, other school staff, community, social workers, policy makers etc..Their participation is crucial for the success of the project and will be involved in the following activities:1.The direct beneficiaries group, teachers and students will participate in the all planned activities of the project, as well as the setting up and the implementation of the B-GREEN SCHOOL CLUBS to be organised in PR4 for the PILOT TESTING of PR1, PR2, and PR3. More speficically,- 25 students will participate in the B-GREEN SCHOOL PROGRAMME to be set up either in or out of schools (20 hours of training and 20 hours of outdoor activities). Trained teachers will be involved in this supported by the partner organisations’ coordinators.(total 40 hours, min 5 teachers, min 25 students). The selection of teachers/students is the responsibility of the participating schools (as part of the consortium or associate partners). P2, P5, P6 will carefully choose its students and teaching staff that is willing to experiment with new technologies and new approaches in the classroom, and the rest of the partners will invite local schools to select teachers and students which will benefit from this participation in the workshops. 2.CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING for teachers: 5 teachers per country will attend the C1 upskilling training activity in FR which will include presentations and workshops on the new developed material. 3.During the DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES, presentation of the material to local organizations or individuals who cooperation with the schools such as Parents’ Associations, Local Authorities, School Boards, NGOs, youth organizations, vocational centres etc. It is expected that at least 10 representatives from each country (60 in total) will be informed about the project and will be encouraged to play with the AR GAME, register on the platform and utilize the material. 4.BLENDED MOBILITY OF LEARNERS: 5 students accompanied by 2 teachers from each country will participate in the training activity for 7 days (2 traveling). The first 4 days participants will interact via organised workshops and visits to enviromental oriented organizations (recycling companies, NGOs, second hand shops), while developing a CODE OF CONDUCT addresed to Schools for minimizing carbon footprint (total 28 students and 12 teachers). At this stage partner organizations, except the criteria as mention below in the C2 description, will give priority to at least 4 STUDENTS with fewer opportunties to travel abroad and experience this transnational opportunity (Total: 30 YP) 5.B-GREEN CONFERENCES (E1-E4): 30 participants will attend the local conference in each partner country. (Total. 120)6.AUGMENTED REALITY GAME APP(PR2): 25 students from each country will download the app, create their profile, complete the challenges and inspire them to minimize their impact on enviroment and live an environmentally conscious lifestyle.7.PLATFORM (PR3). Through the PLATFORM teachers and students will be able to search for material to increase their knowledge on the subject and exchange ideas through the e-COMMUNITY. (Total 140 teachers and students at least to register as users). The project team will run the PLATFORM and provide any immediate support to the target group. 8.SOCIAL MEDIA will be used to involve people in project's outcomes. (Total at least 300/ 50 per country). All the material developed will upload to facebook page of the project in order to enhance their dissemination.9.OTHER NATIONAL EVENTS, e.g. EARTH DAY, World Environment Day, International Education and Career Exhibition etc. (Total visitors 10.000)<< Results >>The expected results for secondary school teachers and students and on its completion are:1.The LEARNING and ASSESMENT TOOL in the form of an AUGMENTED REALITY GAME (PR2) with an AVATAR incorporating: - quiz-like evaluation mechanism supporting self-education and self-regulated learning both for monitoring and skills retention purposes (spread in levels and associated with point system). - newsfeed of environmentally friendly activities and tips that will guide users on how to save energy, conserve water, sustainable food consuption and live an environmentally conscious lifestyle (with puch notifications on a weekly basis). The Augmented Reality Tool will offer to teachers an innovative and interactive tool to empower the other teaching resources, methodologies and tools and play a significant role towards attracting students’ interest in environmental issues establishing the acquisition of eco-knowledge and the retention of green skills.2.The MULTI-MEDIA TRAINING KIT (PR1) based on the development of a targeted eco-framework with in build benchmarks and indicators against which students’ learing is monitored and assessed, accompanied with interactive/multi-media material offered on/off line with teaching guidelines, videos and presentations to support teachers to ugrade their teaching and as results positively influence students’ ecological mindset from an early age. 1.An ON LINE INTERACTIVE PLATFORM (PR3) with various functionalities to support both teachers and students based on the access level given to them. It will inlcude (a) an e-learning section with materials, resources, tools etc., to be produced in 5 different languages or collected, (b) an e-community as a social environment where teachers can interact and share information, experience and knowledge with other teachers, students, experts etc., and (c) an ECO-AUDIT-TOOL for assesing HOW ECO-FRIENDLY is a school, accompanied with a GUIDE for promoting the concept of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly school. 2.A GUIDEBOOK to support the setting up the B-GREEN CHALLENGE (PR4) for ensuring the project’s exploitation and sustainability and the pilot-testing of the project results (PRs).

Target groups 1.)Project team: 4 countries; 2 organizations per country (1 organization active in youth work related to outdoors/nature and active life-style and 1 organization from creative industries/arts); each organization represented by 1-2 representatives = 9 members in project core team (and 7 more in the extended team);2.)Peers – colleagues and friends from similar youth work organizations (also summer camp leaders, representatives from youth centres, educators) and other artists and people involved in creative industries – both in our countries, but other countries as well;3.)Young people that will be participating in our activities during the project and after;4.)Communities in 4 countries where we work, live and want to make positive changesThe GENERAL IDEA of this project is to exchange experiences and know-how between us – 4 youth work organizations active in using outdoor approach and 4 organizations active in arts/creative field from Latvia, Georgia, Portugal and Italy and try out different tools/practices on how to promote creativity in ourselves, young people and communities through non-formal activities in the nature. It will allow us to get inspired from each other, build capacities to cooperate and co-create and allow us to include more consciously creativity development dimension and learning in/from/through the nature dimension in our work and thus to reach out to young people and communities more effectively.OBJECTIVES1.) To promote interdisciplinary co-operation - locally and internationally – in order to strengthen their capacities of local youth work and international cooperation and provide a space to learn from each other.2.) To discuss how Covid-19 has affected our youth work practices, connection among people, forms of active participation and social inclusion, and explore how developing the skills and competencies for creativity of youth work providers and young people can serve as a solution for us to be better prepared to face unprecedented risks, deal with societal challenges and contribute to positive changes.3.) To research more how creativity works outdoors and in the nature and define a set of concrete competences that we consider crucial to develop among young people4.) To discover and test different tools for promoting creativity in the nature by sharing good practices from our past experiences (both in youth work and also the artists) and experimenting together for developing new ideas. 5.) To create a Digital Toolbox with descriptions (textual and visual) of 30+ ideas for promoting creativity in nature (and other valuable results from project) and share it in youth work and creative communities in our countries and beyond.6.) To promote the idea of being more offline, outdoors and in the nature as a crucial way to be more connected to oneself, each other, community and the nature and being creative. The project will last for 21 months. It will be based on many local activities created by the youth workers in cooperation with their creative colleagues. It will include also 2 transnational partner meetings and 2 international learning activities that allow the partners to meet and exchange experiences between the countries. We expect this project to be a great boost for learning for our organizations and members who will be part of the team. We expect them to be more empowered, more creative, confident and we expect many professional and personal friendships to be created. As a follow-up of this project further international projects would be born. We hope that next projects would enable our young people to be involved even more actively, so these could be youth exchanges, youth initiatives, etc. Digital Toolbox will be one of the most tangible results of our project (.pdf or in the page), it will include 40+ description of tools tried out during the project, the framework of CREATIVITY components/competences (presented in a form of infographics) and also 16+ stories of experiences from this project by team members and participants of activities. To make the promotion of project even more effective, we will also make a short video that promotes main project results.For us it is crucial that young people not only experience “awakening” of their creativity, recognize it and gain many new tools for promoting it, but we also will support the process of transferring this to real life - realizing how this kind of seemingly abstract creativity can help them in being fulfilled and successful persons in their personal and social life and motivate them to take responsibility and be innovators in their communities.As the project conciously targets also young people with fewer opportunities, through project activities we also aim to promote their inclusion and empowerment.