A) Content of the project 'Future Labs': In youth work, new tools are constantly needed in order to keep up with fast global changes, support youth’s participation in society, active citizenship and to prevent new forms of social exclusion. The partner organisations in this project, through their experience, expertise and direct contact with the field identified a common need: many of their youth workers, trainers and educators struggle with the ways how to approach these topics, and new responses are urgently needed. The main idea of Future Labs project is established for: common trainings, hands-on approach, sharing the knowledge on online and offline methods to improve the competences of youth workers by increasing their capacity to innovate in their daily work and also by mainstreaming already existing innovative methodologies including ICT tools. Our general aim is to rise the quality of international youth work practices and contribute to the modernisation od NGO’s by creating an innovation eco-system that allow organisations and individuals to discover innovative approaches and new methods - both online and off-line - and to learn how to apply them to emerging issues. B) Objectives of the project: 1) capacitate youth workers in digitalization and in social innovation 2) test new approaches with young people in a co-creative manner 3) evaluate, adapt and spread the tools wider in the European youth work community. In addition a secondary object is to strengthen the cooperation among partners and that way to enhance the horizontal and transnational exchange of experiences from the grass root level to the network level. C) Number and profile of participants and target groups: 1. Primary target group are the professional youth workers in partner countries: multipliers, members/experts’ from the partner organizations and the local youth workers from different NGOs & municipalities Profile: experienced youth workers (working regularly with youth, preferably with young people with fewer opportunities; they should have at least 2 years experience with the youth work) and motivated to experiment and innovate their activities with tools focused on social inclusion and digital media. Number of the participants: 48 2. Secondary target group: young people (age 12-30) in the test/co-creative groups in every partner country: camp schools, local youth groups and volunteers in youth centres, and NGOs, trainings and workshops for youth, pupils in upper secondary school, school councils, young people with fewer opportunities and students from the Degree Programmes of Youth Work. Number of the participants: 800 3. Third group of participants: local youth workers, lecturers, teachers, NGOs, municipalities and policy makers. Number of participants: 6000. Dissemination activities (the video tutorials, live streams, podcasts, training curricula and eHandbook) and multiplier events made by each partner, networks, other contacts, social media and websites. D) Description of activities: - 3 Transnational Project Meetings (Nurmes/Finland, Vinci/Italy and Lisbon/Portugal) - 2 International Trainings for Youth Workers (6 days/training, 48 participants, places: Bratislava/Slovakia ja Ostrava/Czech Republic) - Pilot groups of youngs and young adults testing the tools - 4 Intellectual Outputs: Training Curricula for Digital and Social Innovative Tools, eHandbook, Episodic Podcasts about Digital and Social Innovative Tools in Youth Work and Video Tutorials and Live Streams for Youthworkers produced by crowdsourcing - 8 Multiplier Events (Finland 1, Portugal 2, Italy 1, Czech Republic 1, Slovakia 2 and Slovenia 1) - Dissemination activities in Finland, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia E) Methology used in the project: ICT tools: Realtimeboard, Google Docs, Skype, Slack, WhatsApp, Video Tutorials, Podcasts, Digital Storytelling and other tools: Dragon Dreaming, Design Thinking, Gamification, Humour Techniques, Art of Hosting, Visualisation Techniques, Photovoice. F) Short description of the results, impact envisaged and the potential longer term benefits in the field of European youth work: - grown professionalism and the quality of the work of youth workers, increasing ICT skills and social innovative methods generally in the field of Youth Work - 'ICT tools and social innovative methods for Youth Work' data bank - creating common ground for a further co-operation and helping contributing to a bigger task: digitalization and creative social methods use in youth work in Finland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy and Czech Republic & Europe wide.
A) The main idea of Future Labs project was to improve the competences of youth workers by increasing their capacity to innovate in their daily work and also by mainstreaming already existing innovative methodologies including ICT tools. In order to achieve our goals the project organised common trainings for youth workers, who tested the new tools with youth groups and gave feedback which was used to further develop the tools. There were hands-on approach, sharing the knowledge on online and offline methods by disseminating the results and the new tools and intellectual outputs produced by the project. Our aim was to rise the quality of international youth work practices and contribute to the modernisation of NGO’s by creating an innovation eco-system that allow organisations and individuals to discover innovative approaches and new methods - both online and off-line. B) Objectives of the project were: 1) Capacitate youth workers in digitalization and in social innovation 2) Test new approaches with young people in a co-creative manner 3) Evaluate, adapt and spread the tools wider in the European youth work community. In addition a secondary object was to strengthen the cooperation among partners and that way to enhance the horizontal and transnational exchange of experiences from the grass root level to the network level. C) Number and profile of participants and target groups: 1. Primary target group were the professional youth workers in partner countries: multipliers, members/experts’ from the partner organizations and the local youth workers from different NGOs & municipalities. Profile: experienced youth workers and motivated to experiment and innovate their activities with tools focused on social inclusion and digital media. 2. Secondary target group: young people (age 12-30) in the test/co-creative groups in every partner country: camp schools, local youth groups and volunteers in youth centres, and NGOs, trainings and workshops for youth, pupils in upper secondary school, school councils, young people with fewer opportunities and students from the Degree Programmes of Youth Work. 3. Third group of participants: local youth workers, lecturers, teachers, NGOs, municipalities and policy makers. Dissemination activities (the video tutorials, live streams, podcasts, training curricula and eHandbook) and multiplier events made by each partner, networks, other contacts, social media and websites. D) Description of activities. The Future Labs project organised and produced - 3 Transnational Project Meetings (Nurmes/Finland 13 participants, Vinci/Italy 13 participants and Vila de Marmeleira/Portugal 10 participants). Total number 36 participants. - 2 International Trainings for Youth Workers (6 days/training, 41 participants, places: Bratislava-Malinovo/Slovakia ja Ostrava-Broumov/Czech Republic). Total number 41 participants. - Testing groups of youth and youth workers: 1st training young peoples 252 and youth workers 64 and 2nd training young people 545 and youth workers 106, total number in testing groups were 967 participants. - 4 Intellectual Outputs: Training Curricula for Digital and Social Innovative Tools.(The PDF format is on the drive), eHandbook (144 pages ), 17 Episodic Podcasts about Digital and Social Innovative Tools in Youth Work. The podcasts, "Talking Youth Work" are found in PodBean, iTunes, Spotify etc. (over 2306 downloads) and 18 Video Tutorials and 3 Live Streams are found Humak Youtube Channel and the webpages of project. - 9 (10) Multiplier Events: Finland 1 (2), Portugal 2, Italy 2, Czech Republic 1, Slovakia 2 and Slovenia 1. Total number of participants were 286. - Dissemination activities: FutureLabs website (at least approximately 4445 visits) and links to partner websites, Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) over 40000 people reached, presentations or visibility in the other ways in 13 seminars (approx. 1500 participants) and in 64 meetings (approx. 250 participants), newsletters reached over 319 receivers, dozen of articles in websites or online publications etc. E) Methology used in the project: ICT tools: Google Docs, Skype, Slack, WhatsApp, Video Tutorials, Podcasts, Digital Storytelling and other tools: Design Thinking, Learning Experience Design, Gamification, Humour Techniques, Art of Hosting, Visualisation Techniques, Photovoice. So far the project has reached and influenced directly to 1336 people all over the Europe and indirectly through social media and other online channels numbers are approximately over 50000 people so far.