Context/background of the project: The main idea is that all European countries encounter similar problems and challenges in the fields of youth criminality, safety, integration, early school leavers and consequently a high number of youth unemployment. For all these items, countries try to find solutions that are suitable for the national needs, whilst most of these problems/challenges could probably better be solved in a common, European way. Within the project, bridges will be build between people to get to a common, European solution. This explains the title: B2F (Bridges to the future), which is aimed at young people in different countries, building bridges and working out "best practice" solutions to meet the described challenges. Objectives of the project: The emphasis will be on three items that are of great importance for young people: - School drop-outs – perspectives and challenges: How do we prevent young people for leaving school without finishing their education and support young teenagers to find a suitable job and create opportunities to strengthen their employability chances ? - Social inclusion: How do we ensure that people with different social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds can live and work together in a peaceful way? Next to that: how can we help our fellow Europeans in meeting the challenges of growing numbers of refugees and immigrants? - Juvenile delinquency: What are the reasons for youngsters to drift into criminality and what can be done to prevent criminality among them, inside and outside school ? Number and profile of participants: Approximately 270 teenagers will directly participate in the project. Many of these teenagers represent different groups like immigrants, refugees, apprenticeship seekers or social minorities. But as the project mainly aims at identifying teenagers for problems outside of school, each teenager is indirectly addressed by this project. To reach a maximum of them, video clips and other information are published via social networks. Furthermore, organizations like employment offices, social care workers, police, advice centres for refugees or other social minorities, local/regional/national authorities as well as other stakeholders are asked to disseminate the campaign throughout their distribution channels. The number of teenagers thereby combines students of partner schools, friends on social networks and teenagers in contact with the different stakeholders. Description of activities and methodology used: The students will investigate the current situation regarding the three fields indicated (one per project year) to gain a sound background knowledge. Therefore, they do not only do research on Internet, but also visit and interview stakeholders like local prison institutions, social care workers, unemployment agencies etc. During students' conferences, students present their results of the national investigations, discuss ways and possibilities to solve these matters and, via peer learning, come to common European solutions by developing best practice examples to use afterwards in their own schools as well as in other pilot-schools and/or institutions concerned by the treated subjects. The students also develop a campaign, consisting of animated video clips, flyers, posters, badges, stickers, etc. Posters and flyers are equipped with a QR-code which automatically links to the e-book, which contains facts and figures and a guidance of recommendation. Furthermore, a "B2F-Day" will take place at each school once a year to inform teenagers and stakeholders about the outcomes of the full meetings. Finally, the cooperation of students in an international team is essential, as they need the different background experiences and knowledge to be able to develop an appealing campaign and best practice advice. Results and impact: As the students will be aware of the problems and challenges treated during the project years, its reasons and consequences, activities are planned in order to multiply this awareness to other teenagers. The produced results are used on a B2F-Day, on which students present their investigations and try to catch attention of fellow students as well as other teenagers. Furthermore, results are published on Internet and social networks and given to the stakeholders for display. Thereby it has been tried to identify teenagers for problems they might face in their future and to show them ways to handle these problems. Hopefully, the project partners expect to gain a better employability of teenagers. Long term benefits: An e-book/portfolio with background knowledge will be published (on Internet as well as social networks for the e-book) and will thereby be visible and available for the following generations of youngsters. The implementation and development of best practice examples and common European solutions in pilot-schools and/or institutions interested will positively have a long-term impact on school politics.
Context/background of the project: The main idea was that all European countries encounter similar problems and challenges in the fields of youth criminality, safety, integration, early school leavers and consequently a high number of youth unemployment. For all these items, countries try to find solutions that are suitable for the national needs, whilst most of these problems could probably better be solved in a common, European way. Within the project, bridges have been build between people to get to a common, European solution. This explained the title: B2F (Bridges to the future), which was aimed at young people in different countries, building bridges and working out "best practice" solutions to meet the described challenges. Objectives of the project: The emphasis concentrated on three items that are of great importance for youngster: - School drop-outs – perspectives and challenges: How to prevent young people for leaving school without finishing their education and support young teenagers to find a suitable job and create opportunities to strengthen their employability chances ? - Social inclusion: How to ensure that people with different social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds can live and work together in a peaceful way? Next to that: how can one help our fellow Europeans in meeting the challenges of growing numbers of refugees and immigrants? - Juvenile delinquency: What are the reasons for youngsters to drift into criminality and what can be done to prevent criminality among them, inside and outside school ? Number and profile of participants: About 250 teenagers directly participated in the project. Many of these teenagers represented different groups like immigrants, refugees, apprenticeship seekers or social minorities. But as the project mainly aimed at identifying teenagers for problems outside of school, each teenager was indirectly addressed by the project. To reach a maximum of them, video clips and other information were published via social networks and Internet. Furthermore, organizations like employment offices, social care workers, police, advice centres for refugees or other social minorities, local/regional/national authorities as well as other stakeholders were asked to disseminate the campaign throughout their distribution channels. The number of teenagers thereby combined students of partner schools, friends on social networks and teenagers in contact with the different stakeholders. Description of activities and methodology used: The students investigated the current situation regarding the three fields indicated (one per project year) to gain a sound background knowledge. Therefore, they did not only do research on Internet, but also visited and interviewed stakeholders like local prison institutions, social care workers, unemployment agencies, political authorities, etc. During students' conferences, students presented their results of the national investigations, discussed ways and possibilities to solve these matters and tried to come to common European solutions by developing best practice examples to use afterwards in their own schools as well as in other schools and/or institutions concerned by the treated subjects. The students also developed a campaign, consisting of animated video clips, flyers, posters, theater performances, etc. Posters and flyers were mostly equipped with a QR-code which automatically links to the Website, which contains many facts and figures and all sort of documents developed by students. Furthermore, a "B2F-Day" took place at each school once a year to inform teenagers and stakeholders about the outcomes of the full meetings. Finally, the cooperation of students in an international team was essential, as they needed the different background experiences and knowledge to be able to develop an appealing campaign and best practice advice. Results and impact: As the students have got aware of the problems and challenges treated during the project years, its reasons and consequences, activities were planned in order to multiply this awareness to other teenagers. The produced results were used on a B2F-Day, on which students presented their investigations and tried to catch the attention of fellow students as well as other teenagers. Furthermore, all the results were published on Internet and given to the stakeholders for display. Thereby it has been tried to identify teenagers for problems they might face in their future and to show them ways to handle these problems. Long term benefits: An e-book with background knowledge has been published on Internet and will thereby be visible and available for the following generations of youngsters. This e-book and all other documentation elaborated by the students can be looked up on the Website of the project www.b2future.net. The results of the project will serve as a basis for the development of a new European project called "Let's teach Europe" which will continue the work started with "B2F".