#PlayEurope – EduGames for Active Citizenship Erasmus Project

Project Title

#PlayEurope – EduGames for Active Citizenship

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Europe has been marked in recent decades by a reduction of participation in social life, above all among young people. According to official data about the 2014 European Parliament elections, what comes out is that young European citizens have lost interest towards society and related issues. Furthermore, the unemployment rate, an important measure of a country or region’s economic health, is still high in the European Union countries, even though it is falling from the 2013 peak. In order to contrast this trend, European Union supports startups, social enterprises and entrepreneurial initiatives as long as they have a social impact and generate profit not only for entrepreneurs, but also for the entire community as well. Youth is the key to making the economy start over.

#PlayEurope project aims to contribute to build a new generation of active citizens. The project’s main objective is to use the cooperative enterprise model and the social entrepreneurship education to raise awareness among young people about current social issues and democratic participation, using an alternative approach that combines education and entertainment, in order to be more attractive for the target group (university students & unemployed young people between 18‐30 years).
The project – following an edutainment approach – provides young people with an innovative training programme to enhance and promote their competencies in order to become contributing entrepreneurs, responsible and critical citizens.
The consortium is composed by 9 partners from Italy, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Romania and Estonia, representing different types of organizations: 3 SMEs, 2 Private Universities, 4 NGOs. All of them have long experience in EU projects and are deeply involved with young people, social issues, active citizenship aspects, EduGames and innovative teaching methodologies.

#PlayEurope produces two main resources:
– The Manual of Success Stories on Social Entrepreneurship collects 10 success stories of social entrepreneurs to motivate and inspire young people to set their own social business;
– The Step-by-Step Guide “Become a Social Entrepreneur in 7 days” represents a smart and user-friendly journey across Social Entrepreneurship, made up of 8 steps including tips, key business elements, infographics, interesting videos and educative games to foster young entrepreneurs’ hard & soft skills.
In addition, a Workshop is organised in each partner’s country, with the participation of more than 100 young people to practically test and improve even more the resources developed. Through effective actions and tools, partners’ intention is to show young people how and to what extent social entrepreneurship can be a concrete pathway to become better citizens.

The results that the partners want to produce are:
– improvement of specific soft and hard skills of students and unemployed young people, through their involvement in the online #PlayEurope Step-by-Step Guide;
– enhancement of digital integration through non-formal learning;
– increased motivation of young people in setting up their business through demonstration of inspirational examples of successful social entrepreneurs;
– increased interest in social issues and democratic participation.

As the main beneficiaries of the project are young European citizens, the activities aim to impact on them by stimulating their attention towards social issues, showing them how to concretely apply the competencies acquired with #PlayEurope project in everyday life, for example by thinking of starting a social business.
The project also engages indirect beneficiaries, above all civil societies, schools, training institutions, public Authorities and NGOs that work closely with young people, through a promotion of an alternative method, by inviting teachers and youth leaders to use #PlayEurope informal learning approach to promote civic participation among their students.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 82032,11 Eur

Project Coordinator

VITALE TECNOLOGIE COMUNICAZIONE – VITECO SRL & Country: IT

Project Partners

• SENIOR EUROPA SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
• FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA SAN ANTONIO
• MITTETULUNDUSUHING PEIPSI KOOSTOO KESKUS
• VISSHE UCHILISHTE PO MENIDZHMANT
• ASOCIATIA GEYC
• G.G. EUROSUCCESS CONSULTING LIMITED
• ACTION SYNERGY SA