Energy poverty is a condition in which households cannot afford to be kept adequately warm at reasonable cost, given the income. It is becoming one of the key policy topics throughout the EU, but the region most affected by energy poverty is the area of South-East Europe - new member states as well as accession states. The energy costs are expected to further increase in the future, due to the fossil fuels depletion and taxation of greenhouses gases emissions directly contributing to climate change. A change in energy consumption habits is required across all social groups but is the most pressing in groups affected by energy poverty or endangered by it. Therefore the project Innovative Direction in Energy Advising (abbreviation: IDEA) purpose is to develop innovations in education about energy poverty. In the course of the project implementation, the most important objective to be achieved is to improve existing and develop new innovative educational methods and materials for adult training on energy poverty. For this reason, within this project curriculum for training will be developed, enabling the trainees to act as energy advisors to the energy poor thereby increasing their housing quality, improving indoor environment and decreasing energy bills. The innovative educational tools will be developed, to allow for high quality learning outcomes. The number of stakeholders providing training on energy poverty will be increased. An international network of organizations and individuals involved in energy poverty education will be created and sustained. The partnership consists of experienced organizations strategically placed in the most affected region - in Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Cyprus. The partner organizations will act as information hubs in their own respective states and also to the neighboring states where energy poverty also presents a heavy burden. Within the project duration, the partner organizations' skills will be increased by participating in intellectual outputs development and in the joint staff training event which will enable them for further dissemination, through multiplier and dissemination public events and by using the ICT dissemination tools (web pages, social networks, webinars, films), thereby sharing the gained knowledge and acquired skills with organizations and individuals active in the area of energy poverty. It is expected that approximately 5000 individuals will be reached by the project activities. The following intellectual outputs will be delivered: overview of already existing materials and training needs assessment; educational program and best practice exchange through mobility; energy poverty educational tools; and educational dissemination tools. For each of the intellectual outputs one of the partners will be the leading organization, with other partners contributing to the content. Only after one intellectual output will have been delivered, activities on the next output will be able to commence. To ensure a high quality of the delivered outputs, a quality assurance plan will be made in the beginning of the project implementation, followed by 5 six-monthly quality reports to be delivered before and reflected upon at the transnational project partners meetings. There fill be six transnational meetings (kick-off meeting, 4 implementation meetings and a final meeting) and virtual on-line meetings in between physical meetings (at least two of them, more if needed). The results to be achieved by the project implementation are: - Report covering all partner countries on the state of the art of existing methods and practices in terms of education about energy poverty and the training needs in this subject, accompanied by a database of stakeholders - Educational programme with a curriculum for adult education about energy poverty - Set of innovative educational materials (tools, methods, practices, initiatives,…) defined in the curriculum. - Guide to accompany the curriculum and to help interested stakeholders to implement it, complemented by video tutorials for each tool and an overview webinar in each country - Website to allow access to all the educational materials and guidance - On-line platform (facebook group or similar) to allow exchanges and sharing of practices between stakeholders active or interested in the adult education on energy poverty The listed results are expected to contribute to the following long term benefits: - Reinforce adult skills and competencies in the field of energy poverty and energy advising - Solving the issue of energy poverty and simultaneously addressing the issue of climate change - Raising awareness of European citizens on the rising issue of energy poverty - Help the unemployed to identify energy advising as an opportunity for them to find job opportunities
Energy poverty is a condition in which households cannot afford to be kept adequately warm at reasonable cost, given the income. It is becoming one of the key policy topics throughout the EU, but the region most affected by energy poverty is the area of South-East Europe - new member states as well as accession states. The energy costs are expected to further increase in the future, due to the fossil fuels depletion and taxation of greenhouses gases emissions directly contributing to climate change. A change in energy consumption habits is required across all social groups but is the most pressing in groups affected by energy poverty or endangered by it. Therefore the project Innovative Direction in Energy Advising (abbreviation: IDEA) purpose was to develop innovations in education about energy poverty. In the course of the project implementation, the most important objective achieved was to improve existing and develop new innovative educational methods and materials for adult training on energy poverty. For this reason, within this project, curriculum for training was developed, enabling the trainees to act as energy advisors to the energy poor thereby increasing their housing quality, improving indoor environment and decreasing energy bills. The innovative educational tools developed, allow for high quality learning outcomes. The number of stakeholders providing training on energy poverty will be increased by their use. An international network of organizations and individuals involved in energy poverty education was created and will be sustained. The partnership consisted of experienced organizations strategically placed in the most affected region - in Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Cyprus. The partner organizations acted as information hubs in their own respective states and also to the neighboring states where energy poverty also presents a heavy burden. Within the project duration, the partner organizations' skills was increased by participating in intellectual outputs development and in the joint staff training event which supported them in further dissemination, through multiplier and dissemination public events and by using the ICT dissemination tools (web pages, social networks, webinars), thereby sharing the gained knowledge and acquired skills with organizations and individuals active in the area of energy poverty. Much more than the 5000 expected individuals (at project application stage) were reached by the project activities. The following intellectual outputs were delivered: overview of already existing materials and training needs assessment; educational program and best practice exchange through mobility; energy poverty educational tools; and educational dissemination tools. For each of the intellectual outputs one of the partners was the leading organization, with other partners contributing to the content. Only after one intellectual output had been delivered, activities on the next output would commence. To ensure a high quality of the delivered outputs, a quality assurance plan was devised in the beginning of the project implementation, followed by 4 six-monthly quality reports. Four transnational meetings were organised with virtual on-line meetings in between physical meetings. The results achieved by the project implementation are: - Report covering all partner countries on the state of the art of existing methods and practices in terms of education about energy poverty and the training needs in this subject, accompanied by a database of stakeholders - Educational programme with a curriculum for adult education about energy poverty - Set of innovative educational materials and ICT tools - Guide to accompany the curriculum and to help interested stakeholders to implement it, complemented by video tutorials for each tool and an overview webinar in each country - Website to allow access to all the educational materials and guidance - On-line platform (facebook group) to allow exchanges and sharing of practices between stakeholders active or interested in the adult education on energy poverty The listed results are expected to contribute to the following long term benefits: - Reinforce adult skills and competencies in the field of energy poverty and energy advising - Solving the issue of energy poverty and simultaneously addressing the issue of climate change - Raising awareness of European citizens on the rising issue of energy poverty - Help the unemployed to identify energy advising as an opportunity for them to find job opportunities