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Achieving Community Champions and Enhancing Social Capital for Disadvantaged Communities (ACCES)
Start date: Oct 31, 2007, End date: Oct 30, 2011 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The ACCES project’s objective is to enhance the quality of life and employability of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Medway and around Dunkerque.The Partners have seen the great benefits of offering crossborder opportunities and intergenerational exchanges to these communities. The combined experiences of the partners will enable them to address the concerns of the variety of audiences involved.ACCES will empower these young people by engaging residents and in particular young people in urban regeneration, delivering a crossborder mentoring and parenting skills programme for young parents, and enabling young people to define and develop community projects which improve their neighbourhoods. Partners will also strive to empower young people through crossborder courses in artistic and cultural expression, personal development and sports marshalling, work experience, training and qualifications. Achievements: What were the key results of the project?Activity 11 Bilingual language training, 1 Cultural awareness event, 5 Language training sessions for the English/french young people, 2 first aid training session as well as disability awareness course, stewarding of the pentathlon world cup and 4 video-making workshops sessions.Activity 2:12 passports processed, 17 E111 cards obtained, 3 Library accounts set up, 6 e-mail addresses were set-up for beneficiaries, two cross-border meetings, 5 local performances in the UK, 4 local performances in France, 2 cross-border final performances in Medway & Dunkerque, 1 cross-border visit in Dunkerque, 16 weekly choir sessions, 20 sessions of 2 hours per week at the Suitcases museumActivity 3:16 Passports for participants, 5 Cooking sessions, Paediatric first aid awareness, Healthy lifetime workshop, 37 language-training sessions, weekly sessions for parents in cooking, parenting, baby massages, child behaviour, production and publication of families’ book and 3 French & 3 English nursery rhymes recorded.Did all partners and territories benefit from the results?The benefits for each territory were that professionals had the opportunity to share learning and transfer knowledge to/from each other which greatly improves the ability to deliver programmes that offer improvements to beneficiaries' quality of life.Partners tested new programmes of work with residents and they were able to evaluate the qualitative results of these. The Acces project activities were different from what is usually funded through other programmes so it was very good to be able to test something innovative.Each participaiting territory benefited from helping residents to acquire a better quality of life and improve their living conditions. Some beneficiaries secured jobs thanks to the project which contributes to lowering unemployment and state dependency at a time when sovereign debt and budget deficits are very much in the limelight. This is an indirect impact but we feel it is important to note.What were the effects / outcomes for the territories involved?The quality of life of the residents who participated in the Acces project has notably increased. Depsite only focussing on two areas in the programme zone, the lessons learnt from the project will have a positive and sustainable effect on the territory as:The activities targeting the well-being of the participating residents will mean that they will be more likely to be economically active in the future.The young people involved in the project learned new skills and acquired qualifications that increase their employability.The organisations and professionals involved will be able to use the knowledge they have gained from the project to deliver a better service to the residents.Elected members from the territories involved in the project were present at several meetings and they also interacted directly with residents allowing them to experience first-hand the project results in the hop that this might influence their decision and policy making.
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Details

  • 50%   509 927,00
  • 2007 - 2013 2 SEAS (FR-UK-BE-NL)
  • Project on KEEP Platform
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3 Partners Participants