The Sparkle project addressed the gap in the non-formal education of marginalised youth in 4 EU countries, reflecting on the importance of extra-curricular aspects of the arts and sports as tools for improvement of the youth key competences required by the contemporary multicultural European society. The project aimed to facilitate the inclusion of young people in any disadvantaged situation (immigrants, refugees, NEETs, ESL, rural youth, ethnic minorities) and improve their employability. Sparkle achieved to capacity-build and strengthen the role of youth workers/trainers/coaches, increasing quality and innovation in art & sport pedagogical approaches, making them able to deal with diversity in non-formal learning environment; to build close cooperation between civil society, youth and sport organisations, local authorities and the private sector to ensure the active participation of all members of the learning community in developing key competences of marginalised youth, and to involve the wider community in the promotion of EU strategies for life-long learning and social inclusion of marginalised young learners.
The demand for relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes is continuously changing in the contemporary EU societies. To deal with these changes, young people need to be equipped with a set of key competences - including literacy, numeracy and digital competence. Critical thinking, creativity and the ability to work as part of a team are equally important to build sustainable careers and become active young citizens. Despite of all European initiatives introduced (the Council's Recommendation on Key Competences for LLL, the New Skills Agenda for Europe, ESCO multilingual classification of EU Skills/Competences, etc.), 37% of the young learners in EU had missed basic and key competences in 2021 (Eurostat online data code: trng_aes_176). New approaches for filling up this gap were required, and especially in the learning process of marginalised young learners. The Sparkle project brought together 4 entities from 4 Member States to increase the quality in the youth work and practices of the organisations involved by creating and sharing a training methodology, using the sport and art for development of key competences of marginalised youth in the participating project countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Spain and Poland) and across Europe.