CONTEXT COVID 19 has exposed the vulnerabilities of lower skilled adults and young people by exacerbating the digital divide. Strategically, the pandemic has impacted career opportunities and mental health, accelerating the imperative need to provide adults and young people with “skills to improve and adapt” in a rapidly changing environment. To meet these challenges will require huge creativity and collaboration from education providers. But traditionally, adult education services are resource intensive, slow, top-down and lack use of digital pedagogies. However, social innovation offers a new pathway and has been advanced intensively by the creative and cultural industries. Recognizing the cultural sector as a place where “social, community and digital innovations take place” highlights the need to involve small scale creative actors to share and adopt the diverse innovation being developed in their environment. For this reason, CSI EU project brings together specialists in adult learning with leaders of outstanding arts and culture institutions to work together to develop social innovation projects with young adults in cultural and creative spaces to tackle current and local issues presented by the pandemic. The OBJECTIVE of CSI:EU is clear: to empower adults and young people most affected by COVID to become confident cultural social innovators and design innovative (digital) solutions to challenges posed by the crisis. In so doing they will develop valuable transversal, digital and employment related skills and improve their own mental health. ACTIVITIES/METHODOLOGY We will achieve our object through producing 3 innovative and complementary Outputs IO1: CULTURAL SOCIAL INNOVATION GUIDE will map the various best practice examples of cultural social innovation, as well as the approaches, methods and tools used to carry out these projects. IO2: THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TOOLBOX will contain a range of measures, tools, techniques and practical guidance for Adult and Youth Educators wishing to incorporate social innovation activities into their teaching strategies, with a particular focus on increasing their confidence in using digital tools. IO3: CULTURAL SOCIAL INNOVTAION HACKATHON AND GUIDE Intensive 1- or 2-day cultural social innovation trainings for both adult/youth educators and young adults on how to carry out/develop CSI projects. PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS: We will work with three specific target groups: ADULTS AND YOUNG PEOPLE, with lower skills especially those at risk, need to strengthen key competences and engage more fully with society around them. ADULT AND YOUTH EDUCATORS need to understand the role of CSI and increase their own proficiency in teaching it through innovative pedagogic approaches. CULTURE-CREATIVE ORGANISATIONS need new and innovative ways to engage with other sectors and local communities in a strategy to become more resilient/relevant in the current time of economic uncertainty, ensuring the sustainable development of cultural & arts sector across Europe. RESULTS: During the life of the projects our outputs will be used directly by over 200 adult educators and youth workers in the development and user testing phases and downloaded by a further 500. In addition, 100 adults and young people will be directly involved in the project Hackathons and at least 175 adult educators, youth workers and stakeholders will participate in multiplier events. After project completion, more than 120 adult education organisations and dozens of stakeholders will continue to offer/ support the development of CSI education, strengthening the ability of our adult education sector to offer high quality education that is more relevant and responsive to the learning needs of adults and young people in the rapidly changing digital and post COVID world. IMPACT The project has been carefully structured to achieve our goal of enabling adults and young people to develop a broad range of transversal skills. Thousands of adults and young people will become confident social innovators and use this mindset and skillset to become engaged, connected and empowered as changemakers in society, as well as pursue enhanced professional opportunities. We will generate this impact by increasing the motivation and ability of adult educators and youth workers to adopt the CSI: EU model incorporating approaches from the cultural and creative sector, as well as digital skills’ training and providing the tools and resources to help them do so. Our partners bring unparalleled reach downwards to adult and youth organisations, outwards to networks and umbrella groups, and upwards to national policy makers and EU level stakeholders
The OBJECTIVE of CSI:EU is clear, all partners on this project wanted to empower adults and young people most affected by COVID to become confident cultural social innovators and design innovative (digital) solutions to challenges posed by the crisis. By doing this they have developed valuable transversal, digital and employment related skills and improved their own mental health.
As a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic the world went into shock and exposed the vulnerabilities of lower skilled adults and young people by exacerbating the digital divide. The world had to adapt and learn how to connect without the freedom of face-to-face meetings or being able to leave their homes for the risk of infection by the detrimental virus. To be able to communicate and live, people around the world had to try to overcome the challenges posed by this by, trying to think of innovative ways of communication and be creative in their methods in a rapidly changing digital environment. CSI EU recognised that social innovation offered a new pathway through cultural and creative industries showing that the cultural sector was a place where social community and digital innovations were taking place. For this reason, CSI EU project has helped to bring together specialists in adult learning with leaders of arts and cultural institutions to work together to develop social innovation projects with young adults to tackle the issues presented by the pandemic.