The project consists of a training for Youth Workers at Curacao & a training for Youth Leaders in The Netherlands. The aim was to have a positive impact on mental wellbeing & ending stigmatisation of young peoples’ mental illness in the partner cities of Tilburg, Willemstad, Blackpool, Thessaloniki, Marmeleira Rmr, Cagliari, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Košice, Praha, Silla, Magdeburg, Willemstad. We wanted to directly contribute to: - The priority set for 2020 mobility projects of Erasmus+ youth: equipping youth workers with competences & methods for their professional development, including for digital youth work, needed for transferring the common fundamental values of our society, particularly to the hard to reach young people. - Goal 5 of The EU Youth Strategy 2019-27: “Achieve better mental wellbeing and end stigmatisation of mental health issues, thus promoting social inclusion of all young people.” “A significant and increasing number of young people across Europe are expressing their concern at the prevalence of mental health issues such as high stress, anxiety, depression & other mental illnesses amongst their peers. Young people cite the immense societal pressures they face today, & express a need for better youth mental health provision.” - Statements from World Health Organisation (2018) pointing to an increasing rate of mental health problems in “adolescents” and the effectiveness of “out-of-school & community youth programmes, especially for young people at risk & those living in deprived areas” in working with those young people. For the Partners this meant a project to: Promote mental health instead of curing mental illness among young people. Partners often work with marginalised young people who struggle with developing C21st skills, the future of life & work, the 4th industrial revolution, global citizenship, personal values, the Covid-19 crisis & the impact on the life of young people & youth work realities. Comments from young people: “I went from performing 2-3 times a week as a drag queen, to losing all my gigs within a week. I relied on it to pay for my study, but it was also a huge part of my lifestyle.” “I feel like the whole coronavirus situation happened extremely fast, & the social media around it is so intense. It was all I talked about with friends & I became pretty anxious.” Therefore partners wanted to support the development of: - youth workers competences to support resilience, self-regulation, flexibility & wellbeing using digital tools as well as face to face meetings to connect with young people. - youth leaders competences to support via peer education the awareness of self-regulation, flexibility and wellbeing Partners wanted to: - strengthen partnership & cooperation for innovation with organisations that work in mental health education for young people in non-formal settings. - exchange good practices - add international value to local & regional projects & activities These EU objectives, partners needs and young people's needs lead us to the following aim & objectives of the project: The aim of this project was: To educate youth workers & youth leaders to have a positive impact on a better mental wellbeing & ending stigmatisation of mental health issues of young people in Tilburg, Willemstad, Blackpool, Thessaloniki, Marmeleira Rmr, Cagliari, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Košice, Praha, Silla, Magdeburg, Willemstad. The project objectives were to provide a set of models & techniques that will: - grow awareness & expression of personal emotions, thoughts, values, & behaviour of youth workers, youth leaders & the young people they work with (Activity 1 & 2) - support understanding & adopting new ideas, approaches, & tools, for youth workers to create actions in response to changing contexts (Activity 1) - grow the mindset of youth workers to support young people to manage transitions in personal life, social participation, work & learning pathways, while making conscious choices and setting goals (Activity 1) - grow understanding & regulating personal emotions, thoughts, & behaviour, including stress responses of youth leaders & support them to create peer education opportunities (Activity 2) - promote the adoption of a sustainable lifestyle that respects the environment, & the physical & mental well being of self, while seeking & offering social support to others (Activity 2) In addition we had overall objectives for the project: - To organise a high quality training & local activity for European and Curacao youth workers to create long term connections between Curacao & European youth organisations - To exchange good practices between partners in ‘mental health promotion in the youth field’ - To add international value to local & regional mental well being & ending stigmatisation of mental health issues activities in partners cities via the Cities of Learning platform.