EDUcate YOUth - Nonformal bridges to formal education

Background EDUcate YOUth – Nonformal bridges to formal education was launched from the common need identified by the consortium leader and its 3 partners from Romania, Italy and Turkey for improving the critical thinking and media literacy competences at the youth level aged 14-20 years. Our work in the field and the ex-ante analysis showed a deterioration of the critical thinking competences for youngsters in the identified target groups from the 4 local communities (in subsidiary when dealing with digital media sources of information), strongly emphasized by the Covid-19 pandemic period. This needs analysis was backed-up by the limited transnational cooperation at youth field between youth NGOs and educational sector (schools). We understood the importance of a trans-sectorial approach when dealing with activities and methods oriented towards tackling disinformation and promoting critical thinking. Our approach was that the two sectors have a complementary function, and the impact on youngsters is strongly enhanced when the classical education sector is engaged in working with alternative non-formal education methods. Hence, the partnership consisted from two youth NGOs (RO and IT) and 2 educational institutions (TR and RO). Objectives EDUcate YOUth was focused on 4 main pillars, linked with the project objectives. We pursued the following: 1. To develop and consolidate key competences regarding critical thinking and correct information among 300 youngsters from Romania, Italy and Turkey, by developing and applying innovative non-formal methods and make use of a digital learning system; 2. To generate a pilot cooperation model at trans-sectorial level (youth and educational sectors), which has the potential to be subsequently multiplied at a main-stream scale, through which can be implemented activities oriented towards critical thinking and medial literacy amoung youngsters aged 14-20 3. To provide access for 200 youngsters with fewer opportunities coming from rural isolated areas in Romania, Italy and Turkey to non-formal education resources 4. To increase the organizational capacity of the 4 consortium partners in the fields of youth and education, by developing a methodology with the potential to create synergies between these two key sectors. Implementation During the 24 months implementation period (March 2021-February 2023), we have implemented the following activities: 1. Project management and coordination. This was a support activity to ensure proper implementation and reaching objectives, and consisted in: - 5 transnational meetings organized by rotation by the consortium partners in Romania, Italy and Turkey, with a recurrence of 4 to 5 months. - Monthly zoom meetings with the members of the project coordination team from all partners to ensure the timely implementation of activities. 2. Two LTTs (learning, teaching, training mobilities) designed and implemented for increasing the critical thinking and media literacy competences for the partners’ staff, which were implemented in Romania between 12-19 September 2021 and 3-10 October 2022, with 20 participants per each mobility. 3. Two Intellectual Outputs: i) IO1- Nonformal methodology for critical thinking and correct information; ii) Digital e-learning platform. 4. Three multiplier events for the project results, that were organized in Romania-Horezu (on 17 December 2022), Italy-Orta Nova (on 5 January 2023) and Turkey-Belen (on 20 January 2023) Achievements Main outpus and results of the project EDUcate YOUth are: A. Intellectual outputs 1. An interactive collection of non-formal methods (backed-up by full implementation methodology) for working with youngsters while enhancing the competences on critical thinking, correct information and media literacy. 2. A digital online platform for that facilitates the access of any interested youngster, disregarding the location, to non-formal methods stimulating critical thinking, backed-up by an interactive “Fake News Alert” section for reporting and dis-proofing disinformation and misinformation identified in online and social media B. Learning results 1. We have developed the critical thinking and media literacy skills for over 500 youngsters from Italy, Turkey and Romania, aged 14-20 years old, who were involved in the physical testing of the non-formal methods developed by the consortium members in the pilot testing phase of Intellectual Output 1. 2. We have provided access to over 10.000 youngsters, by making use of all online and off-line communication channels, to the resources developed during the project. 3. We have enhanced the organizational capacity of 4 partners to scale-up their work on critical thinking