The project faces a rising emergency in the EU: the situation of youngsters with fewer opportunities, 1 out of 3 of them is at risk of social exclusion; aged 15-29, 30 million today (Eurostat). One of the answers to such social issue is the use of non-formal education that this project aims to promote with the expertise and potential of capoeira, a sporting discipline spread among over 90 Countries. Capoeira is an actual expression of non-formal education which acts through inclusive paths that foster the personal and social redemption of youngsters (often excluded from the formal system), offering transversal answers to the needs of the different kinds of youth distress (mental/physical disability, poverty, unemployment, cultural/racial/religious/sexual discrimination, lack of or poor schooling).The project focuses on the core needs of:-Youngsters with fewer opportunities, who long for thrilling educational experiences able to make them feel welcomed and allowing them to safely and collaboratively express their potential;-Capoeira trainers, who, going over established educational practices that very often do not fit the work with youngsters with fewer opportunities, require a complete framework of professional skills to educationally act in a correct and efficient way, able to unleash the potential of youngsters with different disadvantaged backgrounds;-Capoeira schools, which will get acknowledgment for their actions and increase the professionalizing paths of their trainers by validating their skills within the existing EU education system;-The European socio-educational system, increase non-formal educational offer with new topics and projects in quality and quantity to reduce youth issues.The project aims to reach the following goals:1.Definition of the framework of skills, transversal and professionally specific, that capoeira trainers must develop to efficiently work with youngsters with fewer opportunities;2.Development, test and circulation across the EU of specific training, validation and certification for such skills.3.Definition of viable deployment models for actions addressed to youngsters with fewer opportunities, to be replicated by capoeira schools across Europe with the involvement of local socio-educational networks.The project matches with:1)Europe 2020 Strategy: inclusive growth, support to the acquisition of new competences, decrease of the amount of socially excluded individuals.2)ET 2020, Objectives: 1.openness towards formal and non-formal learning, more clarity on and better acknowledgement of the related results; 3.promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship.3)Resolutions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States of May the 22nd 2008 and of November the 27th 2012.Applying the Research-Action methodology and with the support of a dedicated web-platform, the project and its general path of trainings and experimentations (directly carried out by the partner capoeira schools through non-formal education programs addressed to youngsters with fewer opportunities) aim to develop 3 innovative project outputs:a)A Common European Framework of the transversal and specific Skills of capoeira trainers;b)Operational Guide Lines, addressed to both capoeira schools and skill certification agencies, for the professional training and evaluation of youth workers, especially those dealing with youngsters with fewer opportunities.c)A Collection of Experimental Models for innovative actions addressed to and enhanced by youngsters with fewer opportunities (as tested in the project) available for all the capoeira schools across Europe.For a period of 24 months, the project will seamlessly engage 60 workers, involving hundreds of people interested in the project across the 6 partner countries and including about 120 youngsters (80 with fewer opportunities). The project outputs will be available online for free and in the main languages of the partner countries, for consulting and use, up to 24 months after the completion of the project.During such period of time, in at least 6 EU countries up to 4.500 people will take advantage of the project, including capoeira trainers from other schools, public and private stakeholders in the field of non-formal education for youngsters with fewer opportunities, sports federations and skill certification agencies; all bodies potentially able to exploit and promote the project outputs.On a long-term basis, the project will foster:-The acknowledgement and increase of the educational and cultural paths for youngsters with fewer opportunities offered by capoeira schools, through the professionalization of all the involved trainers;-The employability of such trainers, by promoting skills that are expendable both locally and in the EU market;-New models of synergy between the systems of non-formal education, social inclusion for the youth and of the capoeira network.
The project was carried out in the world of the capoeira schools, interested in discover and reinforce the ways of integration of their traditional activities with the systems of education for the young people, in particular those with less opportunities. The stated goals were achieved. First of all, it was a question of emphasizing competences which the capoeirists develop within the training, in order to accompany and to help the handicapped young people. Then, to understand which were the means of improving this training, but more especially to better develop their competences, in order to make them more accessible to the local government agencies, public and private agencies. The final objective was thus to improve inclusion of these young people, by helping the various organizations concerned in their missions towards this public. The project implied, in all its phases, more schools than envisaged. Four schools partners to which was added, at the beginning of the project, Capoeira Banzo de Senzala of Barcelona and who took part in the totality of the project with its own funds. We had on the whole 23 schools of capoeira directly involved, including 38 Masters and trainers and about thirty organizations which are observers and are used as a relay. Besides the schools of capoeira, the project was implemented, by three “scientific” and one technical partners. It was held in three phases: The first phase of observation, which led to the first intellectual production, the IO1 Framework of Competences of Youth Workers of Capoeira. It was held in 5 countries partners. Its construction was based on research (observation and interviews) in direct contact with the professionals of this art who placed themselves at the disposal of the researchers and answer questions often booked to the world of capoeira. The material collected is priceless, because Capoeira is an art that was built in margin of the society, after having been victim of discrimination and crushed by the dominant culture. For this reason, the world of capoeira closed on itself. The great proximity with the Masters and the professors of capoeira allowed an abundant collection of information that can be used by the groups of capoeira, to analyze the procedure and to check their veracity and its relevance. The second phase of certification, which led to the O2 Operational Guidelines for the training and certification of the Capoeira Youth Workers and to the implementation of one specific Certificate of pedagogical competences for the capoeiristes (CCPC) adapted to their characteristics and the needs. According to classification CQP JSJO, the certificate is of level 4. Pointing that, even without the support of the dominant culture, capoeira survived and proliferated throughout the world, it was fundamental that Mestres, that are the entities who defend and protect this art, had their word to say and the a power of decision with regard to the qualification, the validation and the certification of trainers of capoeira. In the process of certification set up, it is the Mestre de Capoeira who starts and who closes the process, which is a strong warranty for the acceptance of the process by the world of Capoeira. The third phase the experimentation and the evaluation led to the production IO3 - Model of Experimentations of non-formal education with capoeira. The models of experimentation brings a credibility to this training, to the experimentation and to the recognition of competences, they facilitate and support a process that can be reproduced in other countries and systems of education. Besides the intellectual productions, the project built a digital platform dedicated to the project, with a public space, a stakeholders space and a backoffice, for the management and diffusion of the project. Elaborate of a ludic game, available on smartphone, allowing all the users of the Web site to familiarize with the capoeira. Created a network of schools and certified professionals of capoeira. At the end of the project, the platform and all its features and tools and its social networks will remain on line and active at least during the 2 years after the end of the project, without additional financings. Thus all the products and results of the project will remain available to those who are interested. Currently the Federation, can already apply the same process to new fields and plans to do it. The schools of the capoeira partners are developing new projects. The scientific partners continue their research on European certification and on capoeira as a tool for social inclusion. In the world of the schools of capoeira, the project started a vast reflection on the value of their role in non-formal education.