STEP - Striving Towards Equal Participation

"<< Background >>The motivation that supported the partnership to apply for STEP project, was a value-based motivation that can be represented by the convinction that ""All human beings have the right to actively participate in and to enjoy benefits deriving from development without any distinction (Declaration onthe Right to Development, 1986, Preamble)"". The specific needs addressed by the project referred to people who live in rural areas or urbanoutskirts are those who have less economic resources and are generally more inclined to leave education and training early, and that lack of participation within the community undermines active citizenship and social inclusion. By the same token, the new digital reality enhanced the risk to exclude those adults. These increases inequalities endorsed by several systemic economic and social barriers, resulting in further exclusion and marginalization, which may endure for many generations. At the same time the project addressed the needs of the educators and social workers to get more tools to reach out and engage adults in their activities, addressing participation, social rights and digitalisation.<< Objectives >>With the implementation of the project, partners wanted to achieve the following objectives:- elaborating tools and services that should improve the inclusion and active participation of those adults who are usually left behind, because they live in rural areas or in urban outskirts because they have a migrant background, or even because they don’t have enough digital skills to access services and opportunities.- supporting the work of educators and social workers in adult education.- sharing experiences and practices at European level to provide answers to local realities.- sharing know-how and methodologies on how to motivate and engage the target groups and realize tools that can be used in all partners' contexts- producing results that can be used behind partners' organisations at international level.- generating a network of organisations that stand for the same values and principles using human rights-based approaches in their daily work.<< Implementation >>The activities implemented were the following:- Translation of the Dignityland board game into Italian and Greek- Revision of the translation of the board game into Spanish- Creation of adapted guidelines to use the board game in adult education- Translation of the guidelines into EN, ES, GR, PT, IT- Creation of Video Pills about Active Participation, Digitization, Social Rights- Translation of the pills into EN, IT, ES, PT, GR- Creation of Guidelines to use the Pills in adult education- Translation of the Guidelines into EN, IT, ES, PT, GR- International online training course for educators and social workers - Local workshops for educators,social workers and mentoring while they used the STEP Tools with adults- Dissemination activities: Events, social media, newsletters- Project management activities: coordination, monitoring and evaluation<< Results >>The concrete outputs of the project were the following:- Translation of the Dignityland board game into IT and GR - 100 copies printed x language- Printing of the Dignityland board game into ES and PT - 50 copies x language- Sending the new translations (IT and GR) to COE for publishing it into the website- Guidelines for adult educators on how to use the board game in EN, IT, GR, ES, PT- 13 pills on Digital tools, Social Rights, and Active Participation in EN, IT, GR, ES, PT- Guidelines on how to use the Pills in EN, IT, GR, ES, PT- 16 educators and social workers trained internationally on STEP tools (24-hour online TC)- 50 local educators and social workers trained locally- 90% mentored to implement the activities with an adult public- Local events to disseminate the project- FB page, Instagram page, and YouTube channels to disseminate the results- 1 brochure in EN, IT, ES, GR, PT- Final Conference in Coimbra- 7 coordination meetings (4 online and 3 offline)"