Children’s life quality: participation, recreation and play – CICADA Erasmus Project

Project Title

Children’s life quality: participation, recreation and play – CICADA

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Pedagogy and didactics; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Background
The proposal draws on the principles of Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to explore children’s quality of life and well being. In short form, Article 31 posits that children and young people have the right to play, rest and participate in cultural and recreational activities. These conditions are acknowledged as essential to children’s health and well being; they contribute to the development of ‘creativity, imagination, self-confidence, self-efficacy, as well as physical, social, cognitive and emotional strength and skills [and] all aspects of learning’ (Committee on the Rights of the Child 2013). These dimensions comprise what the WHO (2018) defines as ‘quality of life’, including diverse health, material, social as well as subjective well being indicators (Wallander and Koot 2016, White 2008). These bring to the fore multiple factors that impact children’s livesfor example, gender, disability, family composition and income, location, access to services and education, and so on.

Project goals
The project aims to map children’s and young people’s life quality from their own subjective perspective and that of their families, building on this, CICADA will develop a training package for teachers and education professionals on how to address children’s quality of life challenges and facilitate their participation in decision making related to their life status.

The innovative pedagogical method of children’s active engagement, will be deployed as its affordances are full alignment with training needs education professionals The CICADA and its training accredited partners will secure the recognition of skills and qualifications of CICADA participants based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), EQAVET and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET).

Additionally, CICADA satisfies a number of Erasmus Plus objectives such as:
•Combine higher levels of excellence and attractiveness of training and education with increased opportunities for all
• Support the development of the EU as a knowledge-based society
•Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era
•Transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications to facilitate learning, employability and labor mobility
•Strengthening key competences in VET curricula and providing more effective opportunities to acquire or develop those skills through I-VET and C-VET.

A short description of the results and impact envisaged
The interdisciplinary and cross-cultural/cross-national set up of the study will help to shed light into a series of factors ⎯e.g. social, cultural, geographical, economic, family—that impact their life organization and trajectories, their decision making, and that of their families, on everyday activities and subjective understanding of their well being. The research is therefore expected to produce valuable data that will inform policy making, relevant services and support agencies in designing appropriate, inspiring and creative environments and frameworks for meaningful to the children and young people activities.

Potential longer term benefits
The inter-institutional engagement of consortium partners in research, education and policy, and the inputs of local participants and stakeholders—children and their families and various leisure and recreation stakeholders— will help to build toward incremental knowledge exchange and sharing of good practice and future partnerships with a shared focus on developing inclusive environments and services for children’s and young people’s well being and life quality.

Project Website

http://www.cicada-erasmus.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 177203 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS & Country: CY

Project Partners

• PANEPISTIMIO KRITIS
• Commisioner for Children’s Rights Office
• CSI CENTER FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION LTD
• SOCIEDADE PROMOTORA DE ESTABELECIMENTOS DE ENSINO LDA
• PAIDAGOGIKO INSTITOUTO KYPROU