The main aim of the project was put already in its title: EU365 - Enhancing participation, diversity, and environmental awareness in VET to increase active European citizenship, inclusivity and climate friendly lifestyles all year long. To achieve this aim, three objectives were set that build the trifold approach of this project. The first objective was to create a visually appealing set of calendars that depict European key messages in three main topics (EU values and participation in democratic life, green and environmentally-friendly lifestyles, as well as diversity and inclusion). These calendars bring the EU key messages into every VET classroom or WBL workplace. To make the calendars interactive, the second objective was to create a toolkit of easy-to-implement activities that fit to a specific key message of the calendar to make the meaning more tangible for the target groups. Finally, the third objective was to engage closer with the target group by posting a new key message on social media for 365 days and by implementing two challenges in which they could participate actively. We planned to reach 10.000 target group members by the end of the project.
The EU365 project partnership assembled to counteract the rise of Euroscepticism in our three partner countries Austria, Ireland and Slovenia. In formal learning settings such as school and university, proper education about the background, aims and real-life benefits of the European Union has usually a solid foundation. However, in VET and WBL learning contexts, these topics are not in focus, which may lead to misinformation and lack of awareness. With this small-scale project, the partnership intended to bring European key messages closer to the everyday life of VET and WBL learners and engage them to become active citizens. At the same time, we wanted to equip VET and WBL mentors with tailored didactic methods to experience and reflect on the meaning of these key messages together with their leaners.