ERASMUS+ PROJECT – YOUTH EDUCATION

“YOUTH & CREATIVITY”

2020-1-MT01-KA227-YOU-092421

Duration: 12 months + 2 months
Start date: 01/03/2021
End date: 04/30/2022

SUMMARY

Supporting creativity - in particular, youth creativity - is an investment, an opportunity to think about work and new professions, giving space to the desire of artists and cultural workers to be an active part of a community and in search of an identity social and cultural.

In this direction, this project intends to act to respond to the ever-growing need to orient and enhance the skills, attitudes and knowledge of young people - creatives and operators in the sector - recognizing the regenerative value of culture for development, transformation and competitiveness of the territories. From this perspective, the project pays particular attention to the creation of collaborations with other bodies (public, private, associations, private individuals, etc.) and joins local, national and international networks.

One of the objectives of the project is to provide young people with the tools and skills needed to find creative and innovative solutions to address unprecedented social risks and challenges due to the COVID19 emergency, as well as to reveal searchable opportunities at a critical time.

This project aims to improve the development of skills and competences that strengthen creativity, as well as to promote the quality, innovation and recognition of the work of young artisans and artists entering the world of work, thus contributing to the recovery of the resilience of the sectors creative.

The project aims to support intersectoral cooperation with a focus on creativity, European citizenship and cultural awareness of all citizens; Through this action, the project also aims to improve social inclusion through the arts, promoting innovative approaches to participatory and intercultural dialogue that connect youth education and training with grassroots organizations in the cultural and creative sector.

The objectives of the CREATIVITY & YOUTH project are focused on the development of entrepreneurial skills and on the promotion of solutions that allow the strengthening of multi-sectoral cooperation to increase the potential of young entrepreneurs by providing new training/workshop and animation/networking services, adapted to the needs of companies who operate in the field of creative industries.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

Increase entrepreneurial skills.
Allow the establishment of collaborations for companies or people interested in starting a creative/craft business
Increase access to information about companies/people involved in creative activities by including these entities in the activities of the project itself
Promotion of good practices in the field of cooperation of creative entities with others operating in this sector
Increase the knowledge of the institutions of the business environment on the needs and opportunities of the creative sector
Strengthen cooperation across three sectors (private, public and non-governmental sector) aimed at supporting entrepreneurship in the creative industries sector.

TARGET GROUP

The target of the project is young artisans, artists who are approaching the world of work for the first time.

The project will see the involvement of:

creative young people
experts / experts / youth workers in the creative industry and business management
successful creative companies
local public bodies that support young people
European organization supporting creative business and young people (associated partners)
beneficiaries who in turn will share the tools developed by the project with other young people
other stakeholders.

ACTIVITY

Project website
international training of young creatives – Mixed mobility “BUSINESS INCUBATOR” in Italy
e-learning platform
creative workshops and videos
multiplier events in each partner country
information material (brochures, descriptions, reports, etc.)
Final conference in Malta
3 international meetings for project staff

RESULTS

We intend to create 2 LEARNING OUTCOMES / PROJECT OUTCOMES

LO1. CREATIVE WORKSHOPS

LO2. YOUTH & CREATIVITY PLATFORM

METHODOLOGIES

– cooperative learning

– cooperative work

– implementation of the quality plan.

Number of project: 2017-1-ES01-KA202-038284

Description: 

Quality Qualification for VET – QQVET is a Erasmus+ project that aims to promote Worked Based Learning among VET providers and stakeholders in order to provide students with a market oriented training offer and a high quality WBL at local, regional, national and transnational level, thus improving the cooperation between companies and VET institutions.

The general aim of the project are to be achieved by:

Measuring and spreading the real impact of WBL experiences on the skills and employability of VET students in order to actively engage VET students, teachers, trainers, providers and companies in this practice
Offering a quality WBL opportunities to VET students and improve dual-scheme and traineeships’ effectiveness at all levels
Offering a WBL quality opportunities to VET teachers and trainers for their continuous professional development
Involving policy makers and stakeholders to promote WBL

The Partnership of the project:

• ESMOVIA, Spain – Promoter
• NTUC Meridian, Romania – Partner
• Aretés, Italy – Partner
• Italsko-ceska Smisena Obchodni a Prumyslova Komora, Czech Republic – Partner
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Vilela, Portugal – Partner
• Alphabet Formation, Belgium – Partner

During the 2 years project the partners worked on 4 different outcomes:

• QQVET Transnational Network
• Impact Study on WBL experience at local, regional, national or transnational level
• QQVET Documentary series
• Recommendations Pack for VET students, providers and stakeholders

On the 14th of June 2019 ESMOVIA together with the partners present these outcomes during the conference that was held in Acuartelamiento Daoiz Y Velarde and hosted by Escuela Taller.

For more information please visit our webpage:

http://aevilela.pt/qqvet/index.html

Tags: #WorkBasedLearning #VET   #impactstudy #traineeship

Roksana Bartlomiejczak is a very young Polish girl who arrived in Martina Franca at the beginning of January to carry out a fully funded training course at the Eccelsa Institute in Alberobello.
The Eccelsa institute has in fact established free scholarships for deserving young people and, following the collaboration with Cultura e Dintorni which took place on the occasion of Erasmus projects from Poland and other European countries, has chosen Roksana as the winner of the 1st place XXIII Tournament National for best pastry and baking student in Wroclaw and 1st place XXI Wojciech Kandulski National Tournament in Poznan.

Roksana is a student at the Zespół Szkół Zawodowych Institute nr 2 im.
Powstańców Wielkopolskich in Września where she attends the pastry making course and already works at a local pastry shop.

Thanks to this professionalizing high pastry making course organized by the Istituto Eccelsa cooking school, Roksana will be able to perfect her professional and scholastic path, developing manual skills in pastry making, including the organizational and management aspects of the catering business. The course includes individual workstations fully equipped for professional use.
The teaching methodology is very practical and focused almost entirely on activity in the pastry laboratory, in order to promote technical knowledge and excellent mastery of the cooking techniques and required operational procedures.

The certified pastry making course of the Eccelsa Institute is structured to become a professional pastry chef and takes place in approximately 4 months with external company training.

For Roksana it is the first time in Italy and it is also the first time she is away from home for a long period. The first impressions of her after two weeks in Martina Franca are very positive!!! She was initially surprised by the weather because upon her arrival she was greeted by a snow-covered Martina Franca.
She lives with a local family sharing the habits and traditions of an Apulian family.
She finds the locals to be very kind and always ready to help her at any time.

Polish cuisine is different from Italian cuisine but Roksana is very happy with it because she has always loved Italian cuisine, especially pasta!

The thing she likes most is mozzarella which has a totally different taste than the mozzarella she finds in Poland.

So far at school he has been able to follow theoretical lessons on basic product categories and the general management of a pastry shop. Practical lessons will begin soon where Roksana will be able to put her skills into practice and acquire new ones.

Roksana is very happy to be able to carry out the course because she believes that the Eccelsa Institute stands out for its great professionalism. The lessons are explained carefully and in great detail.
The professors are always full of enthusiasm and competent.

One of the main activities carried out within the project ‘DigiNET: Digitalization and social media for adult employment’ was the organisation of an International training with the aim to make adult learners confident on how to use social media and ICT for the creation of e-enterprises digital identity as well as for the promotions of entrepreneurial spirit of adult learners.

The international training was organised in Athens, Greece from 27th August to 2nd September 2018. Each project partner (Ex.Act Malta – Malta, Electronic Compass – Greece, Esmovia – Spain, ZAT – Zinev Art Technologies – Bulgaria and Kairos Europe – UK) carefully selected five adult learners (25 in total), to have a practical international experience using non-formal and informal approach.

The international training was organised in the form of blended learning. Before the training participants were given the opportunity to familiarise with the training package developed by the partners on the following topics:

• How to set up the digital identity of an e-enterprise
• How to monitor an e-enterprise
• How to conduct an E-customer analysis, and
• How to create of content for an e-enterprise.

Apart from that, each partner organisation prepared two real case scenarios with entrepreneurs (video interviews) who were willing to share the positive aspects as well as some challenges of their experience going online with their business. This was done both to make the content of the training more tangible to the participants and to show them examples from other people in their same situation.

The first day of the training was dedicated to the presentation of the project and the project participants.
A range of icebreakers was prepared to support team building and integration of participants.
After the initial activities, the project team members took the opportunity to present the training package and answer some open questions; this was followed by a session in which all participants watched the above mentioned interviews with the entrepreneurs.
The experience shared in the videos served as a basis for a group work in which the participants had the task to analyse one selected company and its digital presentation.
At the end of this activity the participants had to prepare a SWOT analysis that helped them to use the acquired knowledge to assess all aspects of a successful e-enterprise critically.

During the second day of the training, participants were asked to use their knowledge and experience to create virtual companies.
The project team formed three groups and assigned each team a specific sector to focus on, in line with the participants preferences regarding the industry in which they would like to start or develop further their own business.

The three selected sectors were: hospitality, fashion and art. In the first part of the day, participants thought about the business they would like to develop and prepared a business plan for their companies.
The group focusing on the hospitality sector developed a business plan for an international restaurant named Picca Delicius based in London; the fashion team decided to open the international second-hand shop of branded clothes BiB – Bring it Back; and the team working on the art sector business went for an art gallery and music venue Bau, based in Lisbon.

In the afternoon each group presented their business ideas to the other participants and had the opportunity to receive feedbacks and comments on their work.
The day ended with a ‘cultural night’ which has been organised to give participants the opportunity to portray their countries through some exciting stories, dances, foods and drinks.

Dances from Malta and Bulgaria, Greek Mastika, almonds from Valencia, cheddar cheese and Marmite form the UK, halva, Bulgarian rose petal jam and many other delicacies helped participants to develop strong connections and significantly improved cooperation for the next three days.

On the third day, the participants stayed in the same groups and started to think about the content for their e-enterprises, as well as to place the content on websites developed just for training purposes. Every group was supported by facilitators who helped them to complete their task.

The fourth day was all about social media. At the beginning of the day, representatives of Greek company Gov2U shared their broad experience in the sector with the participants, describing some of the challenges they faced and the solutions they implemented to solve such problems. After a presentation about social media and their importance for e-enterprises, participants were again divided into groups – the same as the previous days – with the task to develop content for three major social networks: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
A particular challenge assigned to the participants was to animate the other participants to follow their profile. Finally, at the end of the day, all teams had to present their work to the other participants, as well as the project team and were given feedback from both.

The fifth and final day of the training was used for summarising the participants’ impressions, and for general feedback on the work done from both sides – the participants and the project team. The working part of the day was concluded with the issue of the certificates for those who took part in the training and a cultural visit to Athens followed in the afternoon.

This practical international experience gave the participants an overview and framework for further personal development and made them more confident on how to use social media and ICT for creating an e-enterprise’s digital identity.
What is more, according to the participants’ first impressions, one of the essential side benefits of the training was an opportunity to spend five days together with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to be from different European countries, share experiences and check new ideas.  We hope they will use the network they developed as a support in the very next future.