Discover and Use Your Skills and Civil Courage – a new way of empowerment for young disadvantaged adults in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Discover and Use Your Skills and Civil Courage – a new way of empowerment for young disadvantaged adults in Europe

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

In today’s world, many European societies are characterized by an overall anonymousness, apathy and unreflected self-centeredness of their citizens, going along with a lack of values and sense of community, in particular the active awareness for certain human values, such as solidarity for others and attentiveness for the needs of people belonging to minorities or disadvantaged groups. Populist voices are becoming mainstream, suggesting negative connotations of “political correctness” and questioning a general consensus about respective democratic principles. Correspondingly, recent reports and studies, as well as daily media reports, show that verbal and physical violence, different forms of aggression – often against weak members of society – are increasing, more and more leading to escalating incidents and conflicts in everyday life, as well as on the internet (cyber violence, hate comments, mobbing etc.). For example, the UK Social Capital Report (Office of National Statistics) shows alarming indicators of fewer and fewer people stating they could rely on others (16%), while active participation, engagement with neighbours/communities is strikingly decreasing (32% of adults). The most alarming trend has been the drastic increase in hate crime, which, in 2017, increased by 29%.
It is obvious that, in such respects, traditional pedagogy has not sufficiently reached learners and does not provide concrete answers and solutions, which is particularly true for supporting low-skilled young adults, who lack chances in occupation and self-determined/reflected life management in general, and often regard themselves as belonging to a marginalised group of society. The empowerment of young people, especially in terms of strengthening their readiness and ability to actively participate in communities of society, goes in line with the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and represents an important task within the European Union.
For adult education in Europe, these challenges have brought a need for more holistic and multidisciplinary approaches, especially in terms of basic skills provision, which is where our project “Discover and Use Your Skills and Civil Courage – a new way of empowerment for young disadvantaged adults in Europe” comes in: the project partnership, first and foremost, addresses teachers, trainers, coaches, social workers, counsellors working with young adult learners (16-25) and wants to provide concrete approaches and results for their professional use. The project is based on the need to extend the conceptual and practical understanding of “basic skills” by civil courage awareness, skills and competences young people will require for active democratic participation as responsible and well-rounded citizens in times of societal changes. Respective professionalisation of adult educators (active at schools, training centers, career service organisations etc) will build on new (non-school) learning concepts, environments and activities, in order to enable educators to better reach their learners.
In order to strenghten active democratic participation amoung young adults in Europe and combat current negative trends, the “Courage” operative partnership – consisting of educational providers, social and pedagogic experts from the UK, Austria, Romania, Norway and Germany – in cooperation with their selected associated partners- will bring together their multidisciplinary expertise to:
– develop output solutions (new pedagogic concepts, practical tools, adult education models) for practicioners working with the final beneficiaries/end users of this project through three innovative pedagogic outputs (Me and my Courage self study manual for trainers, Me and My Courage Case Box and Civic Courage Showcases) and
– provide policy recommendations, strategic multiplication and sustainable implementation structures for relevant stakeholders on a European Level
Participant involvement capacities of the partnership will be utilized to directly reach 100 staff members/trainers, 50 representatives of the final target group/learners and 300 other key stakeholders on national and European leνel during output development and validation, as well as through participation at national Multiplier Events.

Project Website

http://www.courage-skills.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 182492,26 Eur

Project Coordinator

BRIDGING TO THE FUTURE LTD & Country: UK

Project Partners

• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH
• Centrul de Resurse pentru Educatie si Formare Profesionala
• bbb Büro für berufliche Bildungsplanung R. Klein & Partner GbR
• LoPe – forening for mikrointegrering