European societies have never been static, and transformation continues in all member states. In the last years, political and economic upheavals and war have spurred migrations to and within Europe. The churning of European populations and influx of migrants have rendered some indigenous peoples’ minorities and created societies that are rich in ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. However, people from minority groups tend to be poorer and to have less power, less influence and less access to remedies to tackle their problems than those from the majority population. Minorities struggle to realize all types of human rights, whether civil and political, economic, social or cultural, whether as individuals or as groups. Entrenched discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds is also a common precursor to conflict. Additionally, the negative political populism is also growing. In such political polarization, young adults especially those with minority backgrounds are the most vulnerable. These appearances make even more complicated the social-political inclusion of the young adults minorities. The latest finding of Fundamental Rights Report (FRA, 2019) are reflecting on the widespread socio-economic disadvantages of these groups of young adults. Following, young adults minorities face a high degree of vulnerability that places them at greater risk for negative outcomes. Thus, there is a need to enhance human rights education in the society to prevent unequal treatment of young adults and to get opportunity of minority young adults for future and better inclusion in the society. Effective human rights education not only provides knowledge about human rights and the mechanisms that protect them, but also develops the skills needed to promote, defend and apply human rights in daily life. “Pathway to equality (PTE)” project aims to strengthen the competences of adult educators in key concepts of human rights education with minority young adults and provide them the necessary knowledge and tools as learning resources to promote equality and address intolerance in the society. The direct target group of the project will be adult educators involved in adult learning who will upgrade their skills in human rights education, whereas the indirect target group are young adults learners. All project activities will be strictly interconnected each other and project objectives will be achieved through a careful project planning and defined project methodology. In fact, the project will be managed in a collaborative way, based on collective intelligence and regular communication. Details of the schedule can be seen in the schedule (see GANTT chart). This schedule will be used as a base for the overall project management and tracking of the project milestones. This methodology also mean that steps must be realized in time bound manner as any lateness or missing parts can have direct influence on other partner work. The following methodology will be applied: Plan, Do, Check, Act. The main outcomes of the project will be: four transnational meetings, four outputs, two training events and four multiplier events. All outputs will be available as OERs. Adult educators will: -Develop new skills and knowledge in key concepts of human rights of young adults minority, which is an important issue in Europe right now and on the role that adult educators can play and so raise the impact of their work. - Reinforce practical methods, tools and practices that they can adopt and adapt to their context and so make it easier to protect human rights of young adults minority and promote tolerance and equality. This will happen through the specific skills that they will acquire through the TEs (C1&C2) and the other projects outputs. -Raise participants' capacity and motivation to apply new methods and implement local multiplying events. -An increased network with colleagues from other countries and organizations with the common goal of developing quality projects in the future. -Improve their abilities to deal with new situations and unexpected ones, thanks to specific skills in working with young adults through non-formal and formal education. -Act as multipliers of knowledge acquired in their local area, especially of other Erasmus+ projects giving educational opportunities to the young adults of the local context. -Present Erasmus+ framework and capacitate the participants to take advantage of future learning, mobility or volunteering opportunities.
PTE made available to adult educators Open Educational Resources (OERs), meaning that adult educators now can count on a much wider range of learning materials at their disposal. So, PTE was a project that answered to the need of adult educators to constantly innovate and adapt their curriculum and competences. PTE promoted the professional development of adult educators ensuring that they could develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions to become active agents of change and social cohesion in their communities. PTE played an important role because from one side provided new and free educational tools to adult educators and from the other the new trained adult educators now can work towards the creation of human rights community of young adults activists in the European society through a better quality non-formal education and training that in the long-run will promote a culture of equality and tolerance that respect human rights of minorities.
The EU recognizes that minority rights are essential in today multicultural society to protect those who wish to preserve and develop values and practices which they share with other members of their community. The EU also recognizes that members of minorities make significant contributions to the richness and diversity of society, and that States which take appropriate measures to recognize and promote minority rights are more likely to remain tolerant and stable. For this reason, the project consortium considered the need to develop and build upon competences of adult educators in young adults minority human rights education, both in running educational activities as well as being able to mainstream human rights education. Pathway to equality (PTE) was a 20 months Strategic Partnership (SP), focused on promoting high-quality adult work aiming to provide adult educators with new skills, knowledge and tool in the field of young adults minority human rights education. This project aimed to support adult educators in acquiring knowledge and skills in key concepts of human rights education with minority young adults as well as to empower adult educators to take action decrease the discrimination that minorities face in the society.