Project HOWs

Background With the implementation of this project we wanted to increase the quality of Erasmus+ mobility projects and contribute to the promotion of youth participation by learning project management skill.This in the future will lead more new projects led by young people which will certainly promote their initiative and entrepreneurship. The project results will increase the opportunities to implement new projects and expand the civic and social participation of young people at the local, regional, national, European or global level. Gained skills will promote a more active citizenship of young people, incl. youth volunteer work and solidarity. Organizations that support young people in gaining experience in the implementation of their own projects quite regularly encounter the situation when young people have prepared a project, it is approved and then the big question arises "What and how next?".Youngsters want to implement projects according to their best wishes, however, they lack knowledge, understanding and necessary competences. Also, it is often that participants return from mobility projects and state that the quality of the project was not the best.These are the reasons why we decided to implement the "Project HOWs" project. Objectives The overall goal of the project was to develop the quality of E+:YiA project implementation, providing an opportunity for newcomers in the field of projects to acquire project implementation competences in a modern way, thus increasing youth participation and supporting more active involvement in youth projects. Project goals: •To develop new innovative solutions for the acquisition of project implementation competences in order to increase the overall quality of youth project realization and ensure the sustainability of organizations; •To promote the improvement of the quality of youth work in general by promoting more active involvement and participation of young people in organizations and their project implementation processes. Organizations from 4 countries-Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria were involved in the implementation, which attracted various target groups-young people,newcomers to the field of projects, organizations and their representatives. More than 370 participants were involved in the implementation through various activities (survey, interviews, testing, distribution of results etc), while the number of those involved in an indirect way is much more, including other organizations and potential users etc. Implementation The implementation of the project included several activities: 1. Implement, manage, monitor, evaluate the project; 2. Organize international meetings (3 face-to-face meetings and 1 virtual meeting took place); 3. Develop the intellectual results planned in the project application (research, manual, game, platform); 4. Carry out testing of developed materials (learning mobility was initially planned, however, in connection with COVID19, testing took place at national levels); 5. Carry out results dissemination event in each partner country by inviting no less than 25 participants to conferences in each country; 6. Carry out extensive project publicity and distribution of project results. We believe that all activities were implemented and the goals set for the project were achieved. We expect that the project will have a beneficial and long-lasting impact on both the participating organizations, and will also generally contribute to the improvement of the quality of the implementation of E+ projects. The implementation resulted in the development of an innovative and interactive platform for developing project implementation competencies, which is useful for both project entrants and organizations. Achievements The following INTELLECTUAL RESULTS were developed during the implementation of the project: 1. Research in each partner country to obtain data on the experience of project implementation, which was summarized in a common report. 2. Interactive platform - educational learning tool in which to help develop and acquire Erasmus+: Youth in Action mobility project implementation skills - www.projecthows.com 3. A pocket Book for newcomers - supporting in organising Erasmus+: Youth in Action projects, which includes answers to many "HOW" questions of project implementation. 4. Educational game "HOWs cards" for learning and developing project implementation knowledge and skills; 5. Translation of the research, the Pocket Book and the game into all partner languages - Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and English. 6. Manuals and game materials were physically printed in 50 copies for each partner.