"Now is not the time for 'Business as usual' [...] rather it is the time for honesty. The right to asylum is one of the main European and international values that we should never forget...." (Http: / /europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-5614_de.htm; 14.03.2016) This inculcating quote by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker uttered in his speech to the EU on September 9, 2015 shows very clearly that Europe has been facing a unique challenge, which can only be met through the joint efforts of all member states. In the current debate about refugees, minors occupy a special position, as they still belong to the weakest group of the social chain. They are not only on the run, but they are also exposed to a variety of risks in the target countries and most of them are severely traumatized. According to EUROPOL, for example in 2015, in Italy alone, 5.000, and in Sweden 1.000 refugee children disappeared (See. www.dpa.de; 31.1.2016).A multinational project team from Greece, Germany and Austria, which are the countries in the focus of European wide refugee issue, has set the goal to improve the current situation of young refugees in Europe based ontheir voluntary social commitment with the suffering refugee minors. The consortium uses the enormous, but so far almost untapped potential of well-developed municipal library system in Europe and LIB(e)RO presents a professional continuing education for librarians and establishes municipal libraries as places of safe learning.LIB(e)RO aims at developing a learning platform with the relevant supporting documents according to the principles of social inclusion and allows socially inclusive intercultural learning in municipal libraries. It provides not only language skills in terms of understanding, speaking, reading and writing, but also combines them with the much needed intercultural understanding and skills of life and social interaction in the European Union. Libraries are the "entrance" to Lifelong Learning in Europe and they will catch young people with the opportunities of informal ,non-formal and formal learning to get "spirit" and to keep in touch with it. They give them impressions of a liberal world and places and pathways to go in Europe.In the first phase of the project, extensive analysis and needs assessments will be carried out to identify a broad range of existing measures and tools, as well as the specific needs of the libraries and the young refugees. In the second step, based on these results of the analysis phase, all collected content will be adapted accordingly or completely new documents will be created when it is needed, which will be used as the content for the learning platform. The third phase focuses on creating a manual and an online tutorial for librarians, both of which will be the crucial documents of the professional continuing education and training and which will enable librarians to establish libraries as places of intercultural learning.At the same time, programming for the learning platform LIB(e)RO will start. The structure will be designed in a way to provide self-directed learning at different levels of competence and all skills will be associated with intercultural content. The learning platform will finally be tested in all partner countries by the young refugees and necessary adaptions will be made.Before the preparation of the application, several libraries and social workers expressed their interest and volunteer participation in the project, which also underlines the absolute necessity of the project. Some teachers from compulsory education level who want to use LIB(e)RO in the classroom teaching and in the school libraries also expressed their interest in the project. These volunteers will be crucial for the project's impact and sustainability. Through their engagement, LIB(e)RO will be used in many other libraries than the initially planned 8 libraries and a continuous use of the learning platform over the project period will be assured. In addition, the learning platform will be designed in a way to make it possible to extend to usage any time and be translated into other languages. In summary, project team will use all its power and show all the effort to establish libraries as safe, socially inclusive and intercultural learning sites for minor refugees with the help of the librarians who will be equipped with the necessary know-how regarding the learning platform LIB(e)RO and all its accompanying materials. The acronym ,LIB(e)RO, thus, combines "LIBER" for book and "liberare" for freeing by the small "-e" as a symbol of online learning platform into the verb "LIB(e)RO" (I free, I discard, etc.) and it provides a unique opportunity in the current refugee debate for Europe.
The main idea of the project LIB(e)RO was established on the speech of President Jean Claude Juncker concerning the State of the Union on 9th of September 2015 in which he described that asylum would be one of the main European and international values. In these months numerous refugees came to Europe and the EU faced problems which were totally new and required new ways of thinking and dealing with this situation. Now, after two years, the situation has changed, but problems concerning nationalism and xenophobia still exist. The acronym LIB(e)RO combined the Latin words “LIBER” (book) and “LIBERARE” (setting somebody free) and the small “e” was used for symbolising the online aspect concerning the e-learning platform as the main intellectual output of the project. The consortium was comprised of two organisations in three project countries namely, Greece, Austria and Germany. These countries had been chosen due to their involvement in the refugees issue with different aspects. Greece was and is still seen as one of the “entrance”-countries for refugees to get into the EU via the so called “Mediterranean-Route”, while Germany and Austria are “target”-countries for refugees who want to live and work there. The structure of the consortium was based on a “tandem model”, a scientific partner was matched with a practice partner in each country. Partners were chosen based on their strengths and experiences in different fields such as social-inclusion, political-sciences, programming and web-design, library-studies, training of librarians, network of libraries, social workers and minor refugees. So, the project team was a mix of scientific partners and organisations which worked directly with refugees/ libraries in the project countries. Thus, the project consortium as a whole could cover the needed expertise for developing the aimed intellectual outputs. In terms of contents, LIB(e)RO was set up to develop and implement a socially inclusive online platform plus additional teaching and learning materials for librarians to position libraries as safe learning-spaces for minor refugees. So, the platform should be usable for librarians, social workers, and minor refugees. The project team worked on five main and interrelated intellectual outputs. Firstly the project team made an analysis of the situation regarding the minor refugees and librarians and a needs assessment was conducted with them. Then a pedagogical concept was developed which gave shape to further outcomes. A third outcome was the collection of existing materials and links in the related fields which is a very good compilation of resources in three languages. Forth outcome is the handbook for the librarians and social workers where one can learn more about socially inclusive learning and intercultural learning. It aims at giving these professionals enough information and ideas as well sources about how they can work not only with refugees but every other person who comes from a disadvantaged background. The last outcome is the online learning platform which offers learning materials for learners (refugees and migrants) and for trainers (librarians and professionals working with refugees and migrants). It has themes concerning challenges of living in EU, structure of EU and democracy, or about themes. The learning platform LIB(e)RO and all its additional information like short video-sequences, teaching and learning material etc. are uploaded and structured in the online-learning-system of University of Passau, called “ILIAS” ( https://ilias.uni-passau.de/ilias/goto.php?target=cat_69544&client_id=intelec ). The platform is separated into two main fields: “for learners” and “for trainers” and the whole content can be used in English, German and Greek. Using the structure of ILIAS allows further developments like adaptations, additions etc. of the contents. This ensures, that LIB(e)RO will be a vital source in the future. Especially in terms of disseminating the project and its impact the project team could reach a large number of audiences through different types of dissemination activities, and due to scientific partners, several contributions were made in scientific events. Many municipal libraries in Lower Austria started using the online-platform now and LIB(e)RO was included in the course for school-librarians of PH-Steiermark in Graz. Finally, there are existing contacts to other countries such as France to implement LIB(e)RO in some libraries in these countries in the near future. Finally, the project was closed by organising a big conference in the regional library Landesbibliothek) of Lower Austria in St. Pölten. Local and regional decision-makers and stakeholders visited the conference. The project, its team and the learning platform were presented there, and all participants could test LIB(e)RO during and after the conference. As additional products, the participants got printed handbooks and USB-sticks there to implement LIB(e)RO in their organisations.