<< Objectives >>The aim of this project is to join the forces of a Finnish cultural institute and two youth centres in Helsinki and Tallinn in order to work better for the benefit of young people, enhance awareness of shared European values like equality and participation and the opportunities that the geographical and cultural proximity of Finland and Estonia bring along among young people, as well as to celebrate word and music and to enrich the idea of poetry and poets.<< Implementation >>In spring 2024, we organize an intensive period of workshops in Helsinki, Tallinn and online for a Finnish-Estonian group of young rappers, who will then perform in a suburban festival in Kopli, Tallinn. We create opportunities for reciprocal learning for Helsinki and Tallinn youth workers and encourage youth-to-youth activities.<< Results >>Regular open workshops will be established both in Helsinki and Tallinn and they will attract new music enthusiasts. Youth workers will get new tools for their work and they will be able to improve the quality and recognition of youth work. Discussion on the connection between literacy and integrity will rise and root both in Finland and Estonia. New ideas and partnerships will emerge. Finnish and Estonian youth will see each other better, and the Finnish institute will reach new audiences.

"In recent years youth workers observed change in the use of public space by young people. Whereas the contact with young males in Streetwork and Outreach Work was decreasing, demography provided evidence that the number of boys/men at this age was stable, even slightly increasing. Simultaneously contact with females on public places has increased. Data analysis of usage of public space partly confirmed these observations being a phenomenon in many areas of several cities in Europe.Some theories came up as reason for the development, none of those has been examined: Changes in leisure activities of young males and generally the increasing role of social media obviously seem to play a part either. A strong security driven focus with more CCTV monitoring would support girls/women taking public space and restrain boys/men on the other hand. Educational programs and labour market developments have influence on it. How urban public space is planned and constructed might have changed.The aftermath of the current Corona Crisis is expected to be another game changer on this topic. Any predictions about the impact on the usage and perception of public space are not possible at this moment, though impact is already seen; new hotspots came up in summer 2020, on several places user groups changedThe idea of a research project based on a strategic partnership within the European funding program Erasmus+ aroused already in 2019, the current situation gave even more boost to it. Therefore, we could establish a partnership of four cities (Helsinki, Milano, Stuttgart, and Vienna) where that topic is eminent for responsible persons. Every city has its unique subtopics, but the general issue was observed equally. Every city had to manage the Corona Crisis.The partner organisations are responsible for Youth Work in their cities to a large extend (or even fully). They are all involved both in strategic planning in cooperation with the respective municipality and also responsible for operations in youth work. In total, they are responsible for almost 2000 professional youth work practitioners. Key questions for the project are:Which changes in young people’s usage and perception of public space can be observed? Which general developments, political decisions and local strategies have an influence on this topic? In which way are observations of the recent year influenced by the impact of the Corona Crisis? What are possible European and local strategic approaches to gain influence on these factors? What are the consequences regarding our lobbying activities for the interest of young people? What are proper structural and methodological answer Open Youth Work can offer?In which way activities and offerings of Open Youth Work in public urban space need to be adapted?The project will deliver intense research on the questions that will be planned and supervised by the research partner and carried out by the practitioners. In several meetings we will extract both general European but also regional outcome and develop practical structural and methodological proposals. Target groups for our proposals will be both policy makers and practitionersAs the project partners has huge capacity in directly using and implementing the results into their practical work we can provide an extremely high degree on sustainability and are able to ensure that this will not be a ""Stand alone"" project but will have impact on the four involved cities at least. The intellectual output will be delivered in a way that also those not directly involved will benefit, regardless if they are located in one of the partner cities or anywhere else in the European Union."

The Digitally Agile Youth Work Project was a strategic partnership between experts and leaders in the field of Digital Youth Work in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Scotland. As a partnership we strongly believe that for youth work in the 21st Century to meet young people’s needs the sector must understand and embrace the role of digitalisation within young people’s lives. There is a catalogue of research that shows that, although some parts of the youth work sector are engaged with digital and incorporating new elements into their practice all the time, there is a significant proportion of the sector that is not fully equipped to engage with the digital era and its important impact on youth work practice. This is often due to a lack of confidence and competence in using technology, making people feel that it isn’t for them or for their practice. Throughout the project we have intended to create accessible resources to help to break down this barrier to engagement and support practitioners and managers to acknowledge the importance of building digital into their youth work, the impact and relevance for young people and the way that new technologies can enhance practice. This project has also engaged with the infrastructure enabling the development of digital youth work; identifying resources needed for good practice examples, building strategic development tools into the training materials and calling on organisations, funders and policy makers to support digital youth work in the European Guidelines for Digital Youth Work.The objectives of the Digitally Agile Youth Work project were:Share good digital youth work practice across Europe leading to improved practice and innovation within the European youth work community Build capacity of youth workers to respond to digitalisation through training that meets their needs Improve digital youth work planning and the development of digital youth work strategies through increasing awareness of managers of ethical and organisational considerations and requirements of digital youth workRaise awareness of digital youth work within the youth work sector and to policy makers and funders nationally and EU wideThe project activities focused on the creation of three intellectual outputs, designed to work towards achieving these objectives. All project outputs can be found on the www.digitalyouthwork.eu website:Good practice collectionThis is a collection of 36 short films showcasing good practice in digital youth work from our 6 countries, with the aim of inspiring youth workers to get involved with digital youth work. Each good practice film is accompanied by text outlining the target audience and aims of the practice, the resources needed and feedback and evaluation. The practices are on a range of themes and are generally low-threshold, not requiring a lot of technical equipment.Digital Youth Work Training ResourcesMaterials to develop digital youth work within the youth work sector. The materials include workshop plans to use when training youth workers, session plans for use with young people and self assessment and organisational development tools. The training materials are on a broad range of topics including media literacy, online counselling, STEAM and social media.European Guidelines for Digital Youth WorkThe European Guidelines for Digital Youth Work have been designed to clearly define Digital Youth Work, its impact and the value of youth work as an important educational practice which can empower young people in a digitalising society. The Guidelines give practical and ethical guidance to youth workers, managers and organisations. They also include a call to action for funders and policy makers for the youth work sector, outlining steps they can take to enable the development of digital youth work for all young people.The project outputs have been developed to complement and augment other developments on Digital Youth Work in Europe, to raise the profile and equip the youth work sector to better meet young people’s needs. The methodology to create these intellectual outputs was a collaborative approach, including an innovative ‘Training Jam’ process as well as training, networking and consultation within the sector.

- In today's Lithuania geopolitical situation there is a lack of suggestive educational methods for information literacy based on non-formal education principles and adapted for work with youth with fever opportunities. - So far, pilot information literacy programs, confined integration to formal education system or, by educating critical approach, have not specialized in information literacy area. - Some of initiatives operated in Lithuania in information warfare reacted counter-propaganda. In various strategies it identified as destabilization of situation: just as petrol can not extinguish fire, via propaganda it is impossible to create antidote for other propaganda mechanism. That is why this project aims: T1. Increase youth work quality by integrating critical thinking and information literacy education. T2. To develop youth critical thinking and media literacy. Objectives: U1. To take over the foreign partners good practices in critical thinking and media literacy areas. U2. By invoking international cooperation create critical thinking and information literacy methodology for young journalists and empower to adapt it in practice both - young journalists and institutions working with them. U3. By invoking international cooperation, set critical thinking and information literacy educational program which would fit in Lithuania non-formal education scholars program requirements and empower youth workers to adapt it. U4. In order to ensure sustainability of project results, empower young leaders by developing their critical thinking and information literacy to adapt it through peer-to-peer education. U5. Implement critical thinking and information literacy promotion campaign among youth. U6. To disseminate project intelectual outputs in Baltic and other partners countries. Project activities will be organized in a way that would ensure sustainability of project results (results further application through non-formal education scholars program, peer-to-peer educators, journalists educational institutions) and applied to those group which has potential to change broader society opinion: young journalists, organizations working in the field of journalist education, youth information. Different sectors connected in the project will let us ensure that methods, born during project implementation, will be tested systemically: A. By young journalists, institutions which is working with them, organizations (including organizations working in youth information field, Eurodesk network, youth information points). In the future particular organizations will become sustainable base for critical thinking and information literacy education campaign implementation. B. Non-formal education specialists – youth workers, peer-to-peer educators. A few methodological implementation cycles for young journalists and non-formal education specialists – youth workers will help, in order to improve methodology, target groups will be prepared to act independently, will be ready for possible challenges and have tools, possibilities to act further according non-formal education scholars program and in this way ensure further financial sustainability. By implementing, testing and improving methods, created during project implementation, special attention will be given to geopolitically vulnerable regions, youth with fever opportunities. Planned that project activities will directly reach 1350 people, by results dissemination events the number will be increased with at least 80 people. Critical thinking and information literacy education popularity campaign will reach even higher part of the auditory (not less than 20% of young people). Individuals who will participate in the project will improve their critical thinking and information literacy skills (1350 young people participated in peer-to-peer education, 50 young journalists) or learn how to adapt methodology (20 youth workers, 90 peer-to-peer educators and 20 institutions or informal groups which is working with journalist education, youth information).