THE CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT: - the project reflected the common problem of the European society, namely that school systems don’t always offer enough foundation to start one’s life, youngsters’ general lack of self-knowledge and basic skills to start a career, find a job and establish an enterprise or cope with everyday life and lack of information on opportunities, which often leads to disadvantages and hardens self-realization - the huge unemployment of youngsters creates a bad feeling about Europe THE GOALS OF THE PROJECT: - prepare ourselves for the world of work, everyday life, and taking roles of helping others - to make our generation more inclusive, to encourage people with various cultural backgrounds to co-operate, to take mutual responsibility, to the mutual development of their skills within a community - to publish the applied suggestions and strategies presenting the project as a model of solution - directing attention to the common problems of the European youth - gaining public attention and influencing the decision makers through the media and internet to force changes THE NUMBER AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND OF THE PARTICIPANTS - 5 nationalities and 41 people participated the exchange and most of them were of disadvantaged background, including disabled, gypsy and unemployed youngsters - 7 of the Romanian participants were sight-impaired, who were closely connected to their helping organization. They were clear with their abilities of self-realization, obstacles, opportunities for success and limits. They were very motivated in preparing for life. - The Slovakian group has an additional chance of self-realization through acting. They are co-operating. They have informal connections in several European countries. They have the greatest experience in informal learning. - The Italian organization deals with a lot of aspects of youngsters and their interests. - The Spanish group is experienced in organizing youth programs and events and has strong organizational background - The Hungarian group is excellent at supporting informal youth initiations and youth events, operating youth clubs and follows non-formal learning in general THE ACTIVITIES - Surveys on self-knowledge and career orientation, tests, programmes aiming to acquire techniques of looking for a job, learning enterprising attitudes, deepening knowledge and gaining experience from local youngsters, looking for connection points and opportunities, which prepared us for life and a career start - in a wider sense, we prepared ourselves through our activities to acquire the skills to be able to deal with the present and future of the European youth - we reached our goals through sharing the workload among the project partners and practical methods that depend on or complement or strengthen each other - intercultural programmes guaranteed the realization and deeper understanding of the cultural differences, during which we presented our national traditions and habits to each other, because the European Union is much stronger if its nations preserve their traditions and the cultural diversity is blooming WORK METHODS: Ourworkmethodswereinteractive, encouragedparticipation, developedinfocommunicative and Youthpasscompetence. E.g. onlinesurveys, testing, painting our messages on walls and making an exhibition out of them,collectingideasthroughregionaltrips, workshop of local employees, entrepreneurs and farmers, postingFacebookupdatesaboutthetricks of workingabroad, flashmob, coaching, castings, presentingtopicpresentations, reports, podcasts, video clips, radiospots, making tv intros and DVDs. PLANNED RESULTS: The project activities helped us make the right decisions about our futures and we could learn a lot from each other and the local youngsters about opportunities, jobs, volunteering, traineeships, enterprising attitudes and how to take social responsibility. THE PLANNED RESULTS OF THE PROJECT: IN THE SHORT RUN: - It has provided practical work experience and tips how to handle temporary unemployment. It helps to realize the problems caused by starting our own life. - It has increased confidence and teaches us to be responsible. It also helps to acquire new skills, attitudes and knowledge and we can also deepen the already gained ones. - It has widened our perspective on the European and international environment. - It has grown the common activity and responsibility of European youngsters. - It has contributed to the fight against prejudices, racism, and exclusion, moreover, it teaches to be tolerant and to accept diversity. IN THE LONG RUN: It has served the mutual understanding among European nations, it has increased the intention to co-operate when it comes to problem solving and it has encouraged building a connection based on the openness of youngsters.