<< Background >>Prior to the Covid pandemic, European countries had made significant progress in lowering the rates of early leaving from education and training. However, this tendency is not certain in the future due to the rapid changes in educational systems. Specialists argue that the number of students disengaged in the learning process might grow and cause the new wave of early school leavers, who are unhappy with the recent changes and prefer to enter the labour market earlier. This will be, however, not the thriving and receptive labour market, but the one struggling with growing unemployment rates. That’s why it is so vital to boost young people’s engagement in their education and, at the same time, equip them with the skills that will increase their employability potential in the future.There is a shortage of reliable data about the early school leaving in 2020, therefore the project consortium decided to perform their own research to observe any potential tendencies on the lower scale. The survey was performed among 263 young people in all partner countries, and some of them were also interviewed. 48% of people aged 20-25 and 32% aged 16-20, who are engaged in formal education, are currently considering terminating or pausing their education. 67% of these students pointed out the pandemic and educational transformations related to it as the main reason for such plans. At the same time, only 28 of participants felt properly prepared for the world of work, which presents very unoptimistic perspectives for young people. It’s crucial to state that the research wasn’t targeted only at youth from the groups in danger of social exclusion, but it seems reasonable to believe that youth from marginalized communities might be affected by these changes even more.Another interesting conclusion that can be drawn from the first phase of the Covid crisis, is that any professional activities and businesses that managed to shift their branding and marketing activities online in time, suffered slightly less. New media formats and social media seem to be significantly less affected by the crisis. It is visible by the statistics of giants like YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Tik-Tok or Netflix, who observed an increase in users’ activities in I quarter of 2020 by 13-38%. This supports the statement that video has become the main and most powerful media format of recent years and this tendency was only intensified by the pandemic.These two conclusions – about risks of early school leaving and marginalization, and the potential of video creation and usage do not seem related at the first sight. However, the connection is significant – video creation skills have become a great advantage of any person entering the labour market or planning their own business. These skills can be used to support endangered youth communities in self-expression, but also professional networking, job searching, branding, life-long learning, sales etc. Online video creators seem to be more likely to recover from crisis than solely-traditional job professionals<< Objectives >>In general, the main objectives of the project are:1) To create a suite of video creation resources for young people2) To support youth educators in delivering the video creation training with the help of the bespoke in-service training and handbook3) To provide a series of virtual learning and collaborative environments for sharing project results, enabling education resources usage and gaining recognition for videos created by project participants4) To provide a series of events for both young people and youth educators: Film Festivals in each country for the total of 120 youth participants, Transnational Film-making Masterclass for 18 marginalized youth creators and the Joint-Staff Training event for 12 youth educators, to provide sustainable and practical skill acquisition and fully test the project results.The project, besides increasing the digital literacy levels among young people and youth educators, is designed to have more intangible values. It will increase the cultural awareness of young people, help their understanding and social inclusion, giving them voice, tools, and skills to express themselves, and understand each other. Project results are measured not only by created resources but primarily by a number of trained professionals and the impact of newly possessed skills on their professional lives, their students, and their environments. Therefore, the following training activities will be achieved by the consortium during the project lifecycle: 1) 12 youth educators will be trained in delivering the In-service training programme during the Short-term Joint Staff Training Event 2) 60 front-line youth and community educators will have completed the in-service training programme and upgraded their professional competences in the piloting phase of PR2 3) 120 young people, including marginalized youth, will grow their digital and media literacy levels by using the video creation resources and approaches while piloting the PR1 4) 18 young people, with special emphasis on marginalized youth will complete the Transnational Film-making Masterclass 4) 120 educators, students, parents, and policy makers will gain awareness of the project results and see the videos created by the students in PR1 piloting during the Film Festivals in all partners’ countries. 5) 40 educators, students, and policy makers will attend the final conference in Germany where all project results will be presented and discussed.<< Implementation >>Each partner will conduct multiplier event. Moreover, Final Conference will be organized in Germany in order to maximize the impact of the project. Partners will organize six transnational meetings, including two face-to-face meetings. Partners will also organize two transnational Training Events. The first is Transnational In-service Induction Training for youth educators and the second is Transnational Film-making Masterclass for young creators. The partners have planned activities related to the dissemination of the project. These include: the creation and updating of a project website, the creation and maintenance of a project fanpage on Facebook, four newsletters, and the posting of project promotional material on YouTube and LinkedIn. To ensure wide availability, the website and each of the 4 newsletters will be translated into all partner languages. The project partners will organise regular meetings with the Local Working Group to enable multiplication of project activities. Furthermore, partners will carry out regular activities related to evaluation and monitoring.<< Results >>There are three main project results for the new skill acquisition for both target groups: 1) PR1 – Video-making resources for employability and development of young people 2) PR2 – In-service training programme and handbook for youth educators 3) PR3 – Bespoke e-learning portal The first result aims at providing young people with a comprehensive suite of resources to use in formal and non-formal settings (also, adapted to online or face-to-face learning). The usage of these resources will result in: - Young people increasing their digital literacy levels, with a focus on video and audio production - They will have other skills increased, like research, planning, critical thinking, cooperation, and creativity - They will be able to use these skills professionally or to develop/support and advertise their businesses - The branding and self-presentation skills will help them in the job searching process The resources for young people will be divided into four main areas, covering video creation, production, and usage in four contexts: 1) Advertisement 2) Storytelling 3) Business development 4) Personal brandingIn this approach, the students will be able to use the newly acquired skills according to their current needs – to express themselves, monetize their skills, sell products, or seek employment. This aspect will especially important for young people from the communities in danger of exclusion. The second result is aimed at front-line youth educators. They need the proper resources to provide media production and usage training to young people. The bespoke in-service training programme for youth and community educators will increase their digital literacy levels and will help them understand the social media reality that is usually more intuitive for younger consumers and creators. The educators will gain skills and competences to: - Reach the marginalized youth effectively and have the empathy to support them to the best extent with their struggles - Provide young people with high-quality training in video production and usage, using the most relevant open-source software and commonly available hardware- Feel comfortable with delivering such advanced training using blended and online environments, with full awareness of their strengths and threats connected to it. Both educators and young people will have an opportunity to support their learning process using the bespoke online environment created in the project (PR3). It will be used to: - Providing the tailor-made platform to use the learning resources developed in the project - Providing recognition for the creativity and effort of young people participating in the project piloting, by uploading and sharing the videos they will create during the Film Festivals and the Transnational Film-making Masterclass - Support project and partnership dissemination activities.The results of the project will be uploaded on project website and will be available for everyone interested. The website with results published will be maintained after end of project development.