Myself&Europe - Tools for promoting an active European citizenship for disadvantaged youngsters with diverse backgrounds

"The Maastricht Treaty aimed to transform Europe from a Europe of States to a Europe of citizens. By emphasizing citizen participation, a rapprochement between institutions and citizens, but also through establishing of common rights, Europe wanted to develop awareness of a common destiny and thus bring individuals together. Twenty years after Maastricht and sixty years after the Treaty of Rome, it is more crucial than ever to speak about ""Unity in diversity"" and to revive the feeling of European belonging. Preventing radicalization and violent extremism also becomes an important priority of the EU. This threat increases in the context of poverty and social exclusion and targets young people from diverse backgrounds, without prospects for the future, who are easily influenced. It is important to stress that Europe must be prepared on all fronts to face these new realities. Dropping out of school results from a social disadvantage and, at the same time, perpetuates the risk of social exclusion and, perhaps, of radicalization. The school, teachers, trainers and tutors ""play a key role in helping people at risk of dropping out of school, including those who have already dropped out of school"". There is an urgent need to continue to empower VET teachers, trainers and mentors to acquire new methods, approaches and skills in ICT and active citizenship education.Myself&Europe Project: Tools for promoting an active citizenship for disadvantaged youngsters with diverse backgrounds, is an ERASMUS+ project, implemented between November 2017 and December 2019 (26 months). This project aims to answer to “Social inclusion” horizontal priorities and “further strength key competences in VET” and ""introducing systematics approaches to development of VET professionals” sectoral priorities. This project will develop an innovative Training Pack ‐ Curriculum (EQF & ECVET), Manual and Toolboxes ‐ that servers both trainers and trainees.The purpose is to ""foster the development of social, civic and intercultural competences"" and, at the same time, empower ""media literacy and critical thinking through education and training"", briefly, ""promoting an active European citizenship for disadvantage youngsters with diverse backgrounds"".Thus, 6 organizations working in the field of training, animation, guidance and advice, from 6 European countries, collaborated for 26 months (2017-2019) in order to develop a learning setting and exchanges that can be used throughout Europe by organizations working with these audiences in the context of the development of civic, digital and social skills.To do this, the partners identified and created 5 training units around the above-mentioned concerns, namely:Unit 1 - Foundations and European structureUnit2 - Democracy and citizenshipUnit 3 - Employment and social rightsUnit4 - Interculturality / MulticulturalismUnit5 - The challenges of the 21st centuryThe training setting took the form of a manual containing the skill matrices per unit, educational content and advice for trainers. Then, a toolbox was produced offering exercises and methods per unit, a practical and ready-to-use tools. All of the tools had been tested on a full-scale basis with young people, adults and trainers in various learning situations (secondary schools, universities, popular education associations). A total of 244 young people and trainers, spread over 6 European countries, tested and evaluated the Myself & Europe training system, i.e. 74 trainers and 170 young people. Once the device has been validated, the partners have finalized an operating guide, a guide for getting started with the device intended for trainers.At the end of our project, a total of 492 people and around 100 organizations in the 6 partner countries had been directly affected by the project, including:- 18 staff members of the project partners (planned 12, training on average of 2 trainers per partner)- 74 trainers / users for the entire consortium (planned min 60 planned participants, or min 10 per country)- 170 learners / final beneficiaries for the whole project (planned min 90 participants, or 15 per country)- 200 participants in national dissemination events (planned min 180 participants, 30 per country)"