2020 - 2022

Be creative! - Enhancing soft skills while performing

Erasmus+ programme for adult education/partnerships on Creativity
The project aims to empower educators and adults in understanding and consequently acting on soft skills, a necessary part of the social and professional integration of young adults. Soft skills are defined as character traits or interpersonal aptitudes that affect the ability to work and interact with others. Adult educators and teachers can play a central role in providing adult learners with knowledge and practical information, to help them understand the challenges, and act as active citizens in their local communities, individually or collectively.
To do so, from June 2021 until May 2023, partners from 7 European countries (BE, CY, EE, FR, NO, SP & TR) will work on :

1. creating an andragogy method and training resources for the trainers (Users - Training for trainers/counsellors/teachers) to enable them to build participative, empowering and emancipating training sequences using Cultural activities (especially live performance activities and techniques);

2. Once trainers have been trained, they will support vulnerable adult learners (final beneficiaries) in improving and mobilizing their soft skills in order to better integrate them into society.

Three main aspects will be worked on with the final beneficiaries:

1. How to introduce oneself through the performing arts / storytelling… in order to create paper but especially audio / video CVs or even pitches;

2. Intergenerational work on origins (family, environment, etc.) = work on self-knowledge (one's essence / one's assets) and self-confidence for a successful professional orientation / adapted to one's personality, wishes and strengths.

3. Acquisition of valuable technical skills and creation of a network.

However, a particular focus will be placed on the following soft skills: Communication, Adaptability, Problem solving, Team work, Critical thinking, Conflict resolution and Leadership.

Project objectives

The project aims at supporting opportunities for all to acquire and develop social competences in order to promote employability, socio-educational and personal development, as well as participation in civic and social life.

It will therefore support and reinforce the development of key competences for all individuals throughout life, including critical thinking and creativity, cooperation in arts and learning to learn competences.

Moreover, Be creative! partners will contribute indirectly to extend and develop competences of adult education professionals while improving methods and tools through the effective use of innovative solutions : the creation of an andragogy method and training resources will enable them to build participative, empowering and emancipating training sequences.

It will also contribute to the following areas within:

a) the New European Agenda for Culture – COM (2018) 267 - which acknowledges the social and political challenges Europe faces today and aims at contributing towards European cohesion and integration through culture. The first objective of the Agenda is harnessing the power of culture for social cohesion and wellbeing. "The arts sector is possibly unique, in its contribution to Europe's innovation capacity, and in being driven by a specialized workforce that is highly mobile across national borders" dixit the COM (2018) 267.

b) the renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning under the four strategic objectives identified by the Council in the Education & Training 2020 :
- to enhance the possibilities for adults, regardless of gender, to access high-quality learning opportunities at any time in their lives, in order to promote personal and professional development, empowerment, adaptability, employability and active participation in society;
- to develop a new approach to adult education and training which focuses on learning outcomes and learner responsibility and autonomy;
- to foster greater awareness among adults that learning is a lifelong endeavour which they should pursue at regular intervals during their lives, and particularly during periods of unemployment or career transition;
- to encourage the development of effective lifelong guidance systems.

Project partners will work towards improvement and expansion of the supply of learning opportunities by providing flexible learning opportunities tailored to the target group's learning needs and by valorising competences acquired through non-formal and informal learning.

Be creative! project will propose learning offers adapted to individual learning needs, recognition of flexible modes of learning. It will develop a bespoke e-learning platform on global competence using art and culture for vulnerable target groups supporting them in terms of their social inclusion and career path, a flexible micro-learning path on global competence for both target groups, beneficiaries and users. The digital resources will be framed by the European Qualifications Framework and offer a thematic breakdown of the various topics.
Outputs

Be creative! project partners target to develop 4 main supporting materials:

- Training kit, to be available in 7 languages:

The kit consists of a training programme and a set of practical resources; This includes teaching methods, approaches and materials to equip educators in their teaching activities in formal, non-formal and informal settings. The aim is to respond to the challenges of integration and inclusion through culture in educational offerings. It will include content adapted to the specific needs of the users and beneficiaries of the project.

- Trainer's handbook, to be translated in 7 languages:

The manual will set out basic concepts, definitions and innovative methodological approaches to using art & culture in classrooms and in non-formal and informal learning environments.

It will cover, among other things, how the training kit and its resources can be used effectively to help implement a comprehensive training programme.

- Training pathways, in 7 languages:

Training pathways will be designed and adapted to beneficiaries' needs with the possibility to enhance their experience and skills, takig the format of a practical ready-to-use online or paper "Portfolio". It will enable the learners to put together everything they learned : they will not simply list them but comment them, explaining the difficulties they faced, the merit of certain methods that were chosen, those which they could transfer to other situations and those that are

their own, and even those that they have been able to use.

This tool will assist learners to mobilize and combine their learning in the long run, and will give them the opportunity to be active in the realisation of complex art tasks that enhance their soft and transversal skills.

- E-learning hub, in 7 languages,

Be creative! e-platform is an open learning system where project materials will be uploaded and made accessible. It is aimed to both trainees and trainers to

raise awareness and develop knowledge about different elements related with the use of cultural activities in training processes, through interactive learning elements like scenarios, infographics, videos and/or gamification.

The Learning Platform will have several functions, helping to accomplish the following main objectives of the project:

- repository of open education resources, offering an online space to launch the project developed OER outputs in an free and easy-access way ;

- promotional media to disseminate the project, its activities and outputs, ensuring maximum outreach, longer impact and sustainability ;

- networking tool, shared by participants, stakeholders and other relevant and/or interested organizations, aimed at multiplying the effect of dissemination and exploitation ;

- dissemination hub : source of relevant information, content, resources, methodologies on using cultural activities in training settings addressing insertion and integration of vulnerable adults, aimed at creating awareness about its relevance and usefulness.

Project partners

Association de Gestion des Fonds Européens - AGFE https://www.agfe95.eu/
CIEP www.ciep.be
Instituto para el Fomento del Desarrollo y la formación – Infodef www.infodef.es
Center for Social Innovation - CSI https://csicy.com/
Multikulturelt Initiativ og Ressursnettverk - MIR www.mirnett.org
Manisa İl Milli Eğitim Mudurluğu https://manisa.meb.gov.tr/
OÜ Vestifex www.vestifex.ee


Project supported
Contact
Galina Kušanova
Project manager
Phone: + 372 556 290 94
E-mail: galina.kushanova@gmail.com
Keep in touch!
+372 512 0998
learning@vestifex.com
Tuleviku 7 Narva, Estonia