Women in Art for Climate Kick - WACK

"<< Background >>The motivation for the project starts from the needs detected by the partners, but also from the alignment of the project with European policies and the needs of the citizens. Τhe EU is developing a strong policy against Climate Change, highlighting the EU Action for climate and the European Green Pact which aims for citizens and all parts of society to commit to action for the climate.On the other hand, the cultural and creative sectors are important to ensure the continuous development of societies and are at the heart of the creative economy. More importantly, they are central to a shared sense of European identity, culture and values. In economic terms, they show above-average growth and create jobs while reinforcing social cohesion.Gender Equality is also promoted by the European Commission to achieve economic independence between men andwomen, close the wage gap between men and women, promote the balance between men and women in decision- making, end gender violence. It is necessary to work with adult education through new art-based learning methods to address the problems faced by women and in parallel empower these women to lead the movement to fight against climate change.<< Objectives >>WACK project aimed to: ""Promote the creation of new learning itineraries based on art to empower women to lead the fight against climatechange"". To achieve this objective, up to 5 specific objectives were proposed:1. To address the obstacles that women face, helping to enhance their possibilities and increase the visibility of women;2. To improve the skills of educators through the use of new innovative teaching methods based on art, which allow to increase motivation in learners and to learn new techniques to raise awareness about climate change; 3. To create new pathways to improve capacities to allow adult learners (especially women with fewer opportunities)to improve their key competencies and their involvement in the fight against climate change;4. To increase awareness of climate change in both trainers and learners based on new art-based teaching and learning methodologies;5. To create a consolidated cooperation network that allows to continue developing the main objective of the project interms of inclusiveness of women artists and awareness of climate change. << Implementation >>The main activities of the project to reach the project objectives were the following:- 1rst International activity: It aimed on creating a working climate between partners and to provide a good understanding of Erasmus+ projects. The main outcome was to generate a deep discussion on art learning, women empowerment and climate change;- A virtual activity: the main outcome for this activity was to design the pedagogical and training content to empower women and also to inform them on climate change. The pedagogical content and artistic forms would be implemented in national workshops;- 3 National activities held in Greece, Spain and Germany: this process involved trainings with women from diverse backgrounds involving artistic elements and raising awareness for climate change. Participants had a real life experience and their work was exhibited in local context;-2nd international activity: partners exchanged know-how and best practices on national workshops;-3rd international activity: aimed on increasing relations with partners external to the project, having as a link the objectives of the project. New artistic methods by external experts also introduced and partners created a new network for possible future cooperation.<< Results >>The implementation of WACK project aimed to align with the Erasmus priorities: 1.Cross-cutting priorities ""Inclusion and Diversity"" : WACK dedicated its activities in empowering women from disadvantaged backgrounds; 2.“Environment and fight against climate change”, in which WACK aimed on developing sustainability skills of educators and adults learners.Two sectoral priorities:1.Improve the skills of educators in adult education to projects that develop better and more innovative staffcompetencies and teaching methods: WACK developed innovative learning content for adult learners;2. Create itineraries for the improvement of the capacities of adult education: WACK create educational itineraries by exchanging best practices and getting output from external experts. Moreover, the concrete outputs and results were the following:a) empowerment of women from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds;b) creating of ""safe spaces"" for social inclusion of women;c) addressing the obstacles that women face through exchange of views;d) creation and use of new innovative teaching methodologies and content;e) improvement of key competences of adult women and educators;f) increasing awareness on climate change;g) creating a cooperation"