During the COVID pandemic, unprecedented challenges were posed to all types and levels of learning, including non-formal education and training. An entire generation of young people might have suffered disruption to their learning experience if it had not been ensured to continue through distance learning. There was an urgent need for a response that focused on the needs of every young person during the global recovery from the pandemic, especially those at risk of early retirement, such as learners with less favored socio-economic backgrounds, refugees and migrants, trainees with disabilities and special educational needs. The target group of the project was youth workers because they were those who came into direct contact with the above-mentioned high-risk groups for exclusion or limited access to digital education and had to enrich their knowledge and acquire innovative tools in order to meet this new challenge that also affected learners, teachers, and trainers around the world. In addition, the provision of training for the acquisition of digital skills and competences was taken into account as not all learners had equal skills, resources, or opportunities to participate in distance learning and e-learning.
S.M.A.R.T. is a 25-month Strategic Partnership having involved 7 partners from 6 different European countries from the youth and digital activities development sectors. The project aimed to support and empower youth workers, develop the digital skills of participants and design and implement digital youth activities that would lead to the professional development of participants while at the same time they can be applied to any other form of education and training that is digitally implemented. This was the great success of this project, as it managed in times following the covid-19 pandemic era, where youth work was re-introduced to young people, to flourish and develop concrete results applicable by other peers. The idea behind this Strategic Partnership lied in the interest of the partners to create a project that would be the continuation of 3 different previous Partnerships (STEPS, VR in School Education and in Civic Involvement & SMART Youth work in youth centers) focusing on the latest developments and needs caused by the pandemic and the general emphasis on policies that promote the digitization of education and training.