Among youngsters, in particular teenagers, in Japan and in recent times also in Western countries, we assist an increasing number of people who voluntarily decide to withdraw from society, cutting their relationships and social interests, a phenomenon known internationally as Hikikomori (from the Japanese “self-isolation”). The analysis on needs and level of awareness of the phenomenon among countries highlighted various issues, from a lack of reseach to a misleading representation on media, which often flatten the phenomenon to a mere addiction to internet and videogames.“Beyond the doorstep” intends to raise awareness and work on prevention on the topic of Hikikomori in the 4 countries involved (IT, TR, AL, BA). Through non formal methods in international workshops, local labs in schools and local Training of Trainers with educators, teachers, youth workers, the Consortium aims to work on prevention and awareness raising and on the correct representation and narrative of Hikikomori. Stakeholders, associations and institutions working on the topic will enrich the discussion and bring real cases and practices, which will be collected in an open access Toolkit and an OER traslated in all languages. Specifically, the partnership will work towards the following objectives:- Raising awareness on the phenomenon of Hikikomori among youngsters, families, youth associations, schools and institutions, conveying a correct narrative of the phenomenon, its possible causes and dynamics;- Training youth workers, educators and teachers to work on prevention and identify the signals of social withdrawal, providing with knowledge, techniques and materials for their local action;- Creating a network at local and international level to foster the recognition of Hikikomori and its integration among local and national priorities;- Contributing to the implementation of EU Youth Strategy and Youth goals, and supporting the development of youth work, especially in partner countries.

The aim of the project is to develop an innovative model of online art education for adults who want to develop their creativity and, consequently, their entrepreneurship, and for adults belonging to groups at risk of exclusion, i.e. seniors, the disabled or the unemployed, for whom access to art education online will also contribute to the growth of .in. their self-esteem and social inclusion, using new technologies and marketing tools. The project is to respond to the challenges currently facing artists-educators who want to conduct educational activities on the Internet:-how to conduct attractive and effective artistic classes,-how to effectively commercialize educational activities with the principles of solidarity economy,- how to reach potential recipients and how to promote your activities,-how to choose the right equipment and fully use its potential.The target group of our project are artists-educators deprived of earning opportunities due to the pandemic. These are people who are not afraid of innovation in their actions, who, when implementing their activities, think more broadly than assumed by the basic assumptions resulting from the methods of non-formal education, and who previously did not have an effective technological tool for working with young people. The target group also includes adults participating in online art classes who will directly benefit from participating in the project. An important goal of the project is to use the mechanisms of the solidarity economy in activities aimed at artistic education and stimulating the creativity of adults in order to activate professionally and socially artists who, as a result of the pandemic, have become a group at risk of exclusion due to the loss of standard sources of income. The target group are also adults who, through direct participation in the project, will be able to develop their creativity and digital and social competences, and we will also enable them to participate in a trip abroad. Adults participating in the project will be divided into two categories of recipients: adults whose creativity will be stimulated and will lead to an increase in entrepreneurship and possibly ultimately job creation, and people who do not have to work, however, stimulating their creativity will increase the sense of their value and will contribute to counteracting exclusion, e.g. seniors, people with disabilities, unemployed and not very entrepreneurial in this respect.Our project is innovative because it leads to the creation of new ways of using tools and methods of work for artists-educators and adults (who want to stimulate their creativity and entrepreneurship and those at risk of social exclusion) in the field of art, who have been deprived of direct contact with the recipients of their artistic activities . The benefits of art for human development are well documented. From advancing brain function and motor skills to managing emotional expression. Art is fundamental to improving the lives and ambitions of a global society. It can boost people's self-confidence and help nurture their emotional intelligence while instilling and strengthening the problem-solving skills that will underpin development. During the project implementation, interactive guides, webinars, virtual workshops and essentials will be created in cooperation with artist-educators and intended for use by them in activities for artistic education and stimulating the creativity of adults. Together with partner organizations from Italy, Spain, Greece and Croatia, we will work to support the development and improvement of tools and methods of non-formal education and stimulate creativity in the face of the need to adapt to dynamically changing conditions.An Interactive Tool of Creativity will be created, constituting a collection of necessary technological tools and substantive guidelines for artists-educators and adults who want to transfer their activities to the Internet. The toolkit will be in the form of a website. It will include: links to generally available tools and applications enabling effective remote artistic education, tutorials enabling the use of the full potential of tools and applications, methodology of conducting artistic classes online, editable marquees of conducting workshops and scenarios that will be a model way of using tools created in cooperation with artists -educators, tips on conducting effective marketing activities aimed at implementing the mechanisms of solidarity economy in supporting the economization of the activities of participants and recipients, a manual containing a set of good practices on artistic education

“VOICE” intends to develop structured innovative actions towards increasing the quality of international volunteering mobility (IVM) and building capacity of the youth organizations actively engaged in transnational learning mobility, both sending and receiving international volunteers. VOICE aims to promote IVM as a way to boost youths’ employability potential, foster active European citizenship and feeling as citizens of the world, overcome passivity of younger Europeans and create environment for increasing quality of the IVM supporting organizations. The project has particular importance in terms of evaluating and revising experiences by the 20th anniversary of EVS and recent announcement of the new Commission’s initiative such as European Solidarity Corps.In particular, the project creates new learning tools aimed to support training providers in partner countries and increase quality to On-arrival service provided to European volunteers attending services in partner countries. The project also directly contributes to increasing employability potential of young people throughout providing EVS services to 18 European young people with fewer opportunities, particularly NEETs. The proposal has a special added value due to the innovative cross-sectorial approach and an Open Education Resource development. It’s project objectives contribute to proving youth opportunity “to acquire and develop a mix of knowledge, skills and aptitudes they need to succeed in the labour market” [COM(2010) 682 final].VOICE specific objectives are:- to build capacity of the youth workers and organizations working or intending to start working in the field of cross-continental IVM projects and with ESC initiative; - to capitalize previous outcomes in the field of IVM support and ensure quality transfer of the best practices in the field;- to build personal and professional capacity as training providers of the youth workers from IVM RO based in partner countries;- to create new learning tools based on capitalized outcomes that will contribute to increasing quality of youth work and support provided to European volunteers;- to create opportunity for fostering skills and capacities of European NEETs with an eye to support them in fostering employability potential and further re/enter the labour market;- to promote active citizenship, volunteering and non-formal learning in partner countries.VOICE is innovative because it is made to capitalize existing knowledge on supporting IVM and revise current frameworks of organizational support prior to step into ESC. The project also brings innovative character by its outputs: OER, toolkit and the Glob-bloG. The Glob-bloG (youtube channel with video diaries merged with webpage and social networks pages) is unique communication and dissemination channel targeted specially to peers; it is also a tool to support volunteers during VOICE in gathering new transversal & ICT skills demanded at the current labor market in EU.

Today's scientists strongly believe that game is an important part of the human experience. Gamification is increasingly used in educational settings as a way to enhance student motivation and consequently learning outcomes. It is also a very evolving trend in youth work. Many researches show gamification in education can improve motivation and engagement, thanks to more participative and learner-centered tools. Furthermore, as the youth is the most dynamic social group exposed to the constant information flow and due to that being less responsive, the youth workers are constantly looking for new ways of engaging young people and communicating with them in their language. Gamification creates the opportunity to meet the needs of youth and its better involvement in different activities.To meet the needs of the youth workers in creating a new, more engaging, and participant-centered environment, the partnership of 6 countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro) decided to design and implement the project GROW – Gamify youR yOuth Work. The project's main goal is to build the capacity of youth workers in the participating countries and beyond on gamification methods and innovative tools that can be used in their daily activities with young people, especially the ones with fewer opportunities. The GROW project focuses on creating a blended training course (including training curricula, video tutorials and handbook) for youth workers. Training will be delivered on the local training courses in each of the partner country and all the materials will be freely accessible on the project and partners’ websites and social media, to foster their reusability and sustainability. Furthermore, youth workers interested in the topic of gamification will gain an open space for the exchange of experience and good practice in a form of Community of Practice established during the project lifetime.

"National and transnational datas demonstrate the supra-societies necessity of acquiring life skills. Because life skills acquisition is a learning and teaching process at the same time, which contributes to Well-being, Improve and practice, Stress management, Emotional intelligence (WİSE) skills , in which the individual is informed, acquires positive and healthy behavior, attitudes and skills. Key to coping with pressure, anxiety, stress and anger are information, skills and attitudes. WİSE skills are a form of behavior based one learning that will help people cope with their daily life problems and responsibilities. It is a multi-faceted process that prepares young people for a productive life towards the future and enables them to develop in mental, physical and social respects. This project aims to train trainers in group home settings for traumatized young people. The young peopl are from disadvantaged backgrounds who have suffered abuse and neglect and taken under the government custody for protection, treatment and education and any other rehabilitation needs.These young people exhibit aggression, agitation, anxiety, externalizing behaviours and have serious outbursts. One part of the project will be training the youth workers in crisis management. The other part adress the underlying issues, we will implement the Wise-Mind system. Thirdly, we will assess the impact of teachings on youth worker knowledge and youth worker burn-out. The Wise-Mind system will involve a modular program, with information regarding the stress and relaxation response, self evaluation and awareness, exercises to develop resiliency. Areas of concern are awareness of allostatic load, homeostasis, physical symptoms of stress, healthy life style including eating, sleep, exercise and meditation, optimistic outlook and humor. Our Objectives are:1. Decrease behavioral crisis of young people in Europe2. Decrease burn-out in youth workers in EuropeFor these purposes, 9 partners from different European countries come together to realize Wise Mind project: The Provincial Directorate of Family, Labour and Social Services from Turkey as applicant; İstanbul University Cerrahpaşa, Başlangıç Association and Goversnorship of İstanbul from Turkey; Youth for Equality from Slovakia, Social Cooperative Enterprise from Greece, Younet from Italy, Sticting Anata Foundation from the Netherlands, Human&Longevity from Bulgaria. In this project we will have 3 IOs: 1)Defining WİSE skills through mixed method: Well-being, Improve&practice, Stress management and Emotional intelligence (WISE) skills will be defined by analysing good practices examples in current trainign programmes. Semi-structured scales will be applied to youth workers to define their problems and needs. An academic article will be released as a report.2)Development of new holistic self care system for youth workers - ""Wise Mind"": Modular training content that will last for 8 weeks(once in a week, 2-3 hours in a day) will be created and exploited to the youth workers. 3)Case Study E-Platfom: This will be a platform which includes a project website, a link to the training platform and a link to the case study platform where youth workers can exchange experiences with their peers. We will have 1 transnational meeting in each partner country, 6 in total. We will have 1 multiplier event in each partner country to share the project results with relevant stakeholders. The expected effects of the project to be implemented at the level of young people shall be as follows; To be able to know themselves better, establish positive dialogue with immediate and remote circle, actively using the constructive communication channels by getting away from destructive communication, accept innovations in a positive way and assimilate active world citizenship with adaptation process, develop himself/herself in career and business life in an effective and planned way, have successful employment. The learners shall adapt to the information based structure of this age with the acquisition of skills regarding the objective evaluation of informatics tools. With this project, young people in the target group shall have the WİSE skill to manage their traumas better after they have successfully completed the interactive e-learning process and read the documents included in the project as part of their training. They shall be able to cope with the disadvantages caused by conflict and stress by using WİSE skills and at the same time, they shall contribute to the development of these skills in their surrounding environments. With the contribution of this project, young people with advanced life skills shall be stronger psychologically in their daily life, young people shall be well equipped to contribute to a happier and more peaceful world in national and international arenas."