Quality education and training, successful labour market integration and more mobility are key elements for the advancement of the Europe 2020 Strategy objectives. Mobility strengthens peoples’ employability and personal development and is valued by employers (ET 2020), but is hindered by language barriers. Intercomprehension is a form of communication in which each person uses his or her language and understands that of the other. The advantages of intercomprehension are: it is politically relevant in the context of the EU advocating plurilingualism and cultural diversity, it relies on a solid psychological foundation (it uses innate ability for language learning and previously acquired communication skills), it is educationally reasonable (it motivates learners by using what they already know and their innate ability to learn, it facilitates intercultural education. The general objective is the development of resources for youth workers to promote European citizenship, intercultural learning and mobility so young people can develop their competences for employability. The resources will include training materials on the topic of European citizenship, mobility, competences and employability and a methodology created using principles and activities of non-formal education. The project aims to create innovative resources by combining: academic research on the topic of intercomprehension as a method of developing language competences, with non-formal education principles to create the learning context and involving the final beneficiaries of the results (youth workers) and their target group (young people) in developing relevant materials and methodology for European citizenship education with a focus on international mobility to empower young people by increasing their employability. The training materials and methodology will be developed during joint working sessions with partner representatives, tested with target groups and adapted based on the feedback received. The partners will evaluate the accessibility of the methodology, the relevance of the content and the level of engagement of participants a non-formal education context. The project activities include: short term joint staff training, blended mobility, multiplier events to disseminate the intellectual outputs created (training materials and methodology). The outputs will be available in Romanian, Italian, French and English on the project website. On all levels the project will raise awareness about: European citizenship, youth employability and intercultural learning; it will promote fundamental values and principles at the core of the European Union such as respect for diversity, human rights, cultural sensitivity etc. At local levels, the project will provide young people with knowledge, competences and awareness of opportunities for education and employment abroad, but most importantly, it will empower them to make the most of these opportunities, it will increase the visibility of organizations and their capacity to facilitate international mobility for young people in view of developing employability prospects. At regional and national level, the results of the project will be disseminated and will be transferable, therefore other organizations will be able to use them in their activity and thereby increase the impact of youth work in the field of youth mobility and employability.
Quality education and training, successful labour market integration and more mobility were key elements for the advancement of the Europe 2020 Strategy objectives. Mobility strengthens peoples’ employability and personal development and is valued by employers (ET 2020), but is hindered by language barriers. Intercomprehension is a form of communication in which each person uses his or her language and understands that of the other. The advantages of intercomprehension are: it is politically relevant in the context of the EU advocating plurilingualism and cultural diversity, it relies on a solid psychological foundation (it uses innate ability for language learning and previously acquired communication skills), it is educationally reasonable (it motivates learners by using what they already know and their innate ability to learn, it facilitates intercultural education. The objective of IC EU has been the development of resources for youth workers to promote European citizenship, intercultural learning and mobility, so young people can develop their competences for employability. The resources include training materials on the topics of intercomprehension as a tool for non-formal learning, European citizenship and human rights education, the evaluation of developed competences using intercomprehension and a collection of activities for plurilingual conversations, created using principles and activities of non-formal education. The project results are innovative resources developed by combining: academic research on the topic of intercomprehension as a method of developing language competences, with non-formal education principles to create the learning context and involving the final beneficiaries of the results (youth workers) and their target group (young people) in developing relevant employability materials and methodology for European citizenship education with a focus on international mobility to empower young people. The IC EU Book provides content on the theory and methodology of intercomprehension for European citizenship. The content has been developed during joint working sessions with partner representatives, tested with target groups and adapted based on the feedback received. The information provided therein can be better understood by using the accompanying video material created during project activities with IC EU participants. The intellectual outputs are available in plurilingual format (Romanian, Italian, French and English) on the project website iceu.enoalinguistics.com. The project activities included: 3 transnational partner meetings, 3 short term joint staff trainings, 1 blended learning mobility for young people and 4 multiplier events to disseminate the intellectual outputs created (training materials and methodology), found in the IC EU Book and accompanying videos, downloadable here http://iceu.enoalinguistics.com/ic-eu-book/. On all levels, the project has raise awareness about: European citizenship, youth employability and intercultural learning; it has promoted fundamental values and principles at the core of the European Union such as respect for diversity, human rights, cultural sensitivity etc. At local levels, the project has provided young people with knowledge, competences and awareness of opportunities for education and employment abroad, but most importantly, it has empowered them to make the most of these opportunities, it has increased the visibility of partner organizations and their capacity to facilitate international mobilities for young people in view of developing awareness and employability prospects. At regional and national level, the results of the project will continue to be disseminated and are transferable, therefore other organizations can use them in their activity and thereby increase the impact of youth work in the field of youth mobility, social inclusion and employability.