Context/background of the project:1) The European Union faces a significant influx of migrants and refugees which requires synthesising effective and innovative intercultural and social entrepreneurial processes to empower them and the decision-making processes to create sustainable communities in their host countries and their countries of origin.2) The Cross-border Intercultural and Societal Entrepreneurs' partnership, representing cross-sectorial educational fields, undertook this 3-year project to respond to this need, and set the following general and specific aims:General aims:1) to enhance the skills of adult educators working with migrant and refugee communities to overcome barriers to their inclusion and participation in the host communities, through a 5 Life-Skills educational programme aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals2) to develop a sense of care and responsibility in host communities towards migrants and refugees 3) to facilitate the exchange of inclusive, intercultural and social entrepreneurial training models developed in four countries: Spain, Sweden, Turkey and UK.Specific aims: 1) Output 1: An online curriculum for adult educators entitled ‘Migrants and Refugees as Re-Builders’ based on a 5 Life-Skills programme: i) Sustainable livelihood: The art of covering fundamental human needs and rights; ii) Affection and belonging: The art of caring and accepting to be cared for; iii) Prevention and protection: The art of promoting human security; iv) Understanding and engagement: The art of developing critical and constructive thinking and engagement; v) Participation and social entrepreneurship: The art of enhancing socio-economic value for communities.It uses, as a benchmark, Manfred Max Neef’s matrix of existential and axiological human needs, and Amartya Sen´s capabilities themes of political freedoms, economic facilities, and opportunities for social cohesion and social entrepreneurship, at three levels: personal, professional and societal.2) Video testimonies of migrants and refugees to illustrate each Life-Skills training area: 3) Output 2: Competence Self-Assessment (CSA) framework for adult educators to evaluate their progress in delivering training to migrants and refugees, specifically addressing the key challenges on i) Life Competence: the need to know how to navigate everyday life; ii) Autonomy Competence: the need to be independent and interdependent physically, spiritually and emotionally; iii) Relatedness competence: the need to belong meaningfully to a community.4) Output 3: Social Micro-Indicators (SMIs) for inclusion and economic engagement - Adult educators’-designed indicators of social cohesion and integration of migrants and refugees at micro-social level, using the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX.eu) and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals as benchmarks. This enables a scan of the degree to which integration initiatives are working according to location.Number-profile of participating organisations;4 organisations providing services to migrants and refugees: Initiatives of Change UK, charity, provides training in trust-building; Progestión Association, Spain, provides wide variety of services; Kista Folkhögskola, Sweden, community college providing courses; Migrant Research Centre, Hasan Kalyoncu University, Turkey, undertakes research and provides courses and other services.Description of undertaken main activities;O1: Curriculum for Adult Educators of migrants and refugees; O2: Competence Self-Assessment (CSA) framework (hard-copy and digital) for Adult Educators; O3: Social Micro-Indicators (SMIs) tool (hard-copy and digital) for assessment of effectiveness of training on social cohesion and economic integration.Results and impact attained:1) Holistic Educational Resources comprising innovative tools for adult educators working with migrants and refugees 2) All educational resources are available in 7 languages: English, Arabic, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Tigrinya, Turkish, and in Braille in English3) Interactive Tools to enable adult educators to assess both their training of migrants and refugees, and their contribution towards inclusion and economic engagement4) International organizations working in the field of migration have shown interest in using the resources in their educational programmes5) Local authorities have shown interest in using the SMIs to assess the effectiveness of their policies for social cohesion and inclusion of migrants and refugees6) The Resources give adult educators and migrants and refugees an opportunity to build training modules together that respond to their needs and desire to work to meet them. Longer-term benefits:This educational model enables migrants and refugees to create their own solutions to the challenges they face within their communities, with the host communities and in their countries of origin.

"Despite the prevalence of 15% of youth having one or more disabilities in our general population, hardly any youth is aware how to interact and communicate with their young peers with disabilities. Even the basic principles of barrier free communication are hardly known.Young people with disabilities want people to know more about their feelings, and want to communicate, in order also for their peers to gain a better understanding of disabilities, also in adult life. Disability Matters launch package (UK) stated that 25% of Britons do not feel confident communicating with a child with disabilities.(Young) people with disabilities encounter many different forms of attitudinal barriers that hamper a communication with mutual respect:• Inferiority: Because a person may be impaired in one of life's major functions, some people believe that the individual is a ""second-class citizen."" However, most people with disabilities have “compensating skills”.• Pity: People feel sorry for the person with a disability, which tends to lead to patronising attitudes. People with disabilities generally don't want pity and charity, just equal opportunity and be part of their youth peers community.• Hero worship: Most people with disabilities do not want accolades for performing day-to-day tasks.• Ignorance: People with disabilities are often dismissed as incapable of accomplishing a task without the opportunity to display their skills.• The Spread Effect: People assume that an individual's disability negatively affects other senses, abilities or personality traits, or that the total person is impaired.• Stereotypes: The other side of the spread effect is the positive and negative generalisations people form about disabilities. Aside from diminishing the individual and his or her abilities, such prejudice can set too high or too low a standard for individuals who are merely human.• Backlash: Many people believe individuals with disabilities are given unfair advantages, however they do not get special privileges rather just equal opportunities.• Denial: Many disabilities are ""hidden,"" such as learning disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, epilepsy, arthritis and heart conditions. People tend to believe these are not bona fide disabilities needing “accommodation”.• Fear: Many people are afraid that they will ""do or say the wrong thing"" around someone with a disability. They therefore avert their own discomfort by avoiding the individual with a disability.Making youth aware of these very basic aspects in interaction with a peer with disabilities is a first step in solving the problem, while in a next step barriers need to be broken down by applying proper and accessible interaction/communication methods.These 2 steps are at the core of the project, aiming to impact young people, thus investing in the future, and providing the proper basis for spill over effects into society, and into the working environment.The project wants to help youth communities increase their understanding of disabilities and reduce the fear of approaching or being approached by an individual with disabilities, by applying the peer support model.Target groups- Youth workers and leaders- Student leaders- Student bodies- Youth organisation responsibles- Disability youth organisations responsiblesBeneficiaries- Youth volunteers, youth organisation members- Student bodies/Youth council members- PwD youth organisation members- PwD youth- (Disabled) Students- Youth NGOsThe project will therefore create:- a handbook ""ABC to inclusive communication with my peers with disabilities"": This booklet will address a wide range of disabilities, how it affects communication and how to cope with it to ensure qualitative communication can take place. - inclusive youth volunteering awareness campaign: The awareness campaign will focus on how youth can be prepared to communicate in a polite yet efficient manner with peers who have a disability, with a mutual satisfaction.- mobility events for youth workers: A range of practical workshops will be organised in all partner countries, together with mobilities between partner countries regarding good practices that will be identified via brainstorming sessions among youth from different countries, and in attendance of youth with disabilities.- establish an inclusive communication peer support hub in every partner country to support uptake by target groups and stakeholders, as well as support all participants in mobility events.This set of communication skills for youth is universallly needed (disability knows no borders) and transversal since it is applicable not only to youth environments, but equally to the working environment, as well as family life. After all, people with disabilities should be intrinsically fully part of society (inclusive citizenship).The project consortium brings together 7 partners from 4 countries (Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece)."

<< Objectives >>Exemplify the importance of folktales as a window into the oral histories that shaped the identity of minority groups inhabiting European cities.Produce and implement a participatory methodology for transdisciplinary pursuits: to work with and for the community.Empower marginalized communities to shape how their oral histories are shared.Develop innovative pedagogical material addressing issues of cultural heritage.Foster awareness of common values through sharing a diverse set of folktales.<< Implementation >>The partnership will: establish the DigiFolk methodology and train educators and students in itwork with minority communities to jointly extract, curate and digitize the oral histories (folktales) that have shaped these groups’ identitydesign tale maps and city tours to share the stories in the geographical spaces in which they are tolddocument the process and translate it into freely accessible educational material (DigiFolk toolkit) organise dissemination activities and evaluation moments<< Results >>The project will deliver digitized folktales, tale maps and city tours to share them. To produce these we work with the communities whose stories are shared thus their empowerment is an envisioned outcome of this project. An e-platform with all project deliverables including a toolkit of the DigiFolk methodology and the documentation of its implementation will aid stakeholders to learn about oral histories and their potential to expose dominant groups to the wisdom of other(ised) communities.

The existing research and policy reports show that adult education policies and practices are designed and carried out in ways and using means which are not always appropriate to vulnerable minority groups. In the EduMAP Project the diversity of societal participation and the wide range of cultural contexts and communicative practices among learners will be acknowledged. In particular, the educational needs of young people with low levels of basic and functional literacy, with deficient language and cultural skills (foreign newcomers, ethnic minorities), those who have dropped out of school and those not in education or training due to handicap, are in the focus of the project. The main research question is: What policies and practices are needed in the field of adult education to include young adults at risk of social exclusion in active participatory citizenship in Europe? Through the implementation of six work packages, EduMAP will help European, national and local policymakers, educational authorities and educators to tailor adult education policies and practices to meet the needs of young adults with low levels of education or who are otherwise in a vulnerable position. The project will provide comprehensive analyses and practical insights on the efficacy of the European adult education system in preventing social exclusion and compile an inventory of successful initiatives and communicative practices in and outside the EU. Communicative ecologies in the field of adult education will be mapped and analysed, and the findings will be utilized to create innovative platforms for enhancing dialogue between the providers and potential users of educational initiatives. An IDSS will be developed for the use of policymakers and other stakeholders. The fundamental aim is to help policymakers and educational agencies to ensure that the young generations as a whole are able to acquire the skills needed to fully participate in European societies and the labour market.