Escape Out Of The Box

"<< Background >>We applied for this project to enhance our previous work with escape rooms by providing youth workers, trainers, and educators with practical skills in designing and implementing mind games. Our earlier project, P.E.E.R.: Preparation of Educational Escape Rooms, demonstrated the effectiveness of this method and highlighted the need for further professional development in this area. This project aims to diversify our daily activities, increase the quality of interactions with our target audience, and expand our reach. By introducing participants to various types of escape rooms, we address the need for innovative methods that promote social inclusion and engage youth who were previously uninvolved due to lack of interest or motivation. Additionally, we aim to provide information about Erasmus+ learning opportunities and create a platform for cooperation and networking among participants and partners. Overall, this project seeks to equip youth workers with the tools to adapt existing methods and create new ones, fostering a more inclusive and engaging environment for all youth.​<< Objectives >>​By implementing this project, we aimed to achieve several key objectives aligned with the Erasmus+ programme's priorities:​Enhance professional skills of Youth Workers. We sought to equip youth workers, trainers, and educators with practical skills in designing and implementing mind games, such as escape rooms, to diversify their methodologies and improve engagement with youth from diverse backgrounds.​Promote social inclusion. Our goal was to demonstrate how escape rooms can be adapted for youth with special needs, fostering social inclusion and active participation among marginalized groups.​Foster digital transformation. By creating digital versions of escape rooms, we aimed to integrate digital tools into non-formal education, enhancing digital literacy and engagement among youth.​Address environmental and social issues. Through themed escape rooms, we intended to raise awareness and stimulate discussions on critical topics like environmental sustainability and human rights, encouraging active citizenship and social responsibility.​<< Implementation >>​In our Erasmus+ project, we implemented a series of activities aimed at integrating educational escape rooms into learning environments:​Training program on educational Escape room design ""ESCAPE ROOMS: Out of the Box"": This program provided participants with in-depth knowledge and skills to design and facilitate educational escape rooms as innovative teaching tools.​Development of educational Escape rooms: collaboratively, we created and refined educational escape rooms tailored to various subjects and age groups, ensuring their effectiveness and adaptability in diverse educational settings.​Evaluation meeting on educational Escape room development and testing ""ESCAPE ROOMS: Out of the Box 2.0"": We conducted a comprehensive evaluation session to assess and enhance the developed escape rooms, incorporating feedback from both educators and learners to optimize their educational impact.​Multiplier events: To disseminate our project's outcomes and promote the adoption of educational escape rooms, we organized events in Estonia, Portugal, Lithuania, and Germany. These events engaged local educators, policymakers, and stakeholders, showcasing the developed tools and sharing best practices for implementation.<< Results >>​In our Erasmus+ project, we achieved several concrete outputs and results:​Development of 4 educational Escape Rooms: we created four fully developed, ready-to-use educational escape rooms, each tailored to address specific themes identified during our initial needs analysis:​Estonia: Game ""Gunpowder Plot"" (escape room)Lithuania: Game ""The Life of Someone Called X"" (escape room)Portugal: Game ""The Navigator’s Journey"" (escape room)Germany: Game ""Berlin Wall"" (escape room)These escape rooms were designed to be engaging and educational, providing participants with immersive learning experiences.Each escape room was developed in at least two languages—the primary language of the respective partner organization and English—to ensure broader accessibility and usability across different regions.​To maximize the reach and impact of our project outputs, we implemented a robust dissemination plan, utilizing various channels: project website: hosted on the Vivere platform (viverekool.ee), partner websites and social media, SALTO web portal, Youth worker activities: Integrated the escape rooms into various training sessions and workshops for youth workers."