"Considering the benefits of a gender-sensitive and reflective education for all, and recognising the social importance of transformative educational interventions in the early lives of individuals, along with the need for a more active engagement of boys and young men into the gender equality conversation, this project aims to provide educators/facilitators (e.g. trainers, teachers, youth and NGO workers, gender experts, gender and LGBTIQ+ activists, policy makers and other stakeholders) with a coherent, open, online educational tool-kit that will include a complete course on gender/gender-sensitive education targeting the audience of teenage boys, between 15 and 17 years old. The project will be implemented by a coalition of organisations from three European countries, that is, Cyprus, Spain, and the Netherlands. The applicant organisation is a newly established NGO in Cyprus, the Center for Gender Equality and History (KIIF). The partner organisations include the Gale Foundation in the Netherlands, that is, an NGO focused on LGBTIQ+ education, the Conexus NGO in Spain, which specialises in combating gender-based violence, and the Center for Social Innovation (SCI), a social enterprise based in Cyprus with particular expertise in digital and interacting learning environments. In this context, with a consortium consisting of gender experts, LGBTIQ+ activists, youth workers, educators/trainers/facilitators, psychologists, and technology experts, the partnership aspire to present an Interactive Digital Learning Tool-kit that will help educators/facilitators to successfully engage teenage boys in gender education; target the particular needs and challenges faced by teenage boys in regard to their gendered experience; offer to the participants a meaningful experience of transforming harmful gender norms; empower teenage boys to become allies in the goal of gender equality. Methodologically, the first step toward this goal will be the development of a course curriculum that will follow an interactive and playful approach aiming to be particularly attractive and relevant to the adolescent male audience and that will address subjects such as gender issues and social justice, gender identities and individual/collective freedom, combating gender-based violence, building healthy relationships from the perspective of gender equity, men's sexual and reproductive health, strategies for assuming personal/collective responsibility and positive change etc. from a gender-aware, gender-sensitive, and age-appropriate perspective. The second step will be the integration of the course curriculum into a digital environment in the form of an open, online learning platform, namely the ""Interactive Digital Learning Tool-kit"" consisting of a complete gender education course of approximately 50-55 hours of work; including preparation, ""homework"" or any other “out-of-class” activity. If taken as a complete course, it will therefore correspond to 2 ECTS. However, the tool-kit will also be applicable as an easy-to-use tool for facilitating short autonomous workshops and individual activities, while part of the digital learning tools delivered by this project will be a mobile application based on the tool-kit.Overall, the project will provide educators/stakeholders with a European oriented course aiming to address the common needs, challenges and attitudes shared by young (adolescent) boys living in the social, legal and economic context of the EU, while being designed to be easily adjusted/adapted into the national/local environments of the EU states. For this purpose, the last one of the project's deliverables will be a ""Methodology & Adaptation Guide (Interactive eBook)"" aiming to provide specific guidelines to educators, stakeholders and multipliers on how to integrate the learning tools and the project's outputs in their training activities in different social-cultural settings and implement accreditation processes relevant to the European context (i.e. youth pass, ECVET and ECTS). By providing the world with these learning tools, the project will contribute in the engagement and empowerment–in terms of gender equality, gender awareness, healthy relations etc–of a particular category of young people, the male adolescent, who are often vulnerable to gender stereotyping/labeling, gender-related insecurities, perceived threats to their identity, toxic behaviours linked to particular perceptions of masculinity & power relations etc. but who are often excluded from gender/gender-sensitive education as societies continue to consider gender-related issues as women's issues. This will advance the visibility of the need and the benefits of engaging boys/young men in the issues of gender justice and will strengthen the partners and all organisations/individuals involved in (gender/gender-sensitive) education/research/activism in their overall efforts to engage men, especially young men, into the gender equality conversation."

Context and Background: The project „Paths for timely interventions on trainings with male adolescents“ comes from the fact, that young male adolescents who need training in key competences are reached often too late. Our experience is, that 90% of our clients are reached too late. This leads to an enormous increase of effort and costs. Besides will be the lost time a great burden both for themselves and for their social environment. Trainings for young male adolescents with a lack of social key competences are for us a accurate and supporting measure to reduce deficits. In this field there is an enormous range of theoretical approaches. This great variability between the particular countries of the European Union derives from different social systems, the funding and the legal frame conditions. Moreover different theoretical and therapeutical backgrounds are used in the trainings. A professional exchange with the colleagues from other EU-countries will lead to an improvement of quality in our trainings.Objectives of the projectThe project enfolds four goals: 1. We raise the quality of our trainings by the professional exchange of our concepts for the trainings with young male adolescents who face a lack of social key competences. 2. We dedicate ourselves to the aim to find ways to reach the young male adolescents timely. We identify various supporting systems out of education for adults. A possible system could be for example a program for the second labour market which works with young male adolescents. Another example could be the grandparents or seniors in general, who attend libraries or clubs for retirees. Many seniors are very interested in the attitude of young people in genreal and special young male adolescents.3. We improve our cooperations with other institutions of adult education.4. We develop a network which will be the base for a follow-up which will produce an intellectual output (standards, train-the-trainer programs …)Target group Our Target group are young male adolescents who lack social key competences and therefore need trainings in social competenceNumber of participants: 4Leading organization: Institut für Männergesundheit Salzburg / AustriaParticipating Organizations: Conexus (Spain), Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Jungen*arbeit e.V (Germany), Društvo za psihološku pomoć - Society for psychological assistance (Croatia). All participating organizations offer Trainings for young male adolsecents. Acitvities and methods:A steering group will be established, which is responsible for the monitoring. The members derive from the participating organizations. Each participating organization will host a meeting for the professional exchange. Expected results: We expect four results: Increase of the quality of our trainings for young male adolescents with a lack of social key competences We will find innovative ways tho get in contact with our target group timely. We will find new ways of cooperation with other institutions of adult education. We create a handbook with our results. Longlasting Benefits: Besides of a better quality of our Trainings we will build up a sustainable network for cooperations in future.