Mobile Learning Communities

Empowering young people via digital competences development

Project period: April 2021 – March 2023
Target group: Young people and youth workers
Coordinator: PONTY (UK)
Partners of the project: Pistes Solidaires (France), ACP (Greece), YRP (UK), CID (Republic of North Macedonia)
Website: mobilelearningcommunities.eu

The context
Our young people have been severely disadvantaged by the ongoing pandemic. Whilst they may not have been hit badly by the health implications, the other consequences are wide reaching. the impact on education, civic engagement and participation and access to work experience to name just a few will continue to have an effect for years to come. Of the 12000 young people surveyed by the European Youth Forum who were either studying or combining study and work before the onset of the crisis, 73% experienced school closures, yet not all were able to access online and distance learning. COVID-19 left 13% of young people without any access to courses, teaching or training; 65% of young people reported having learnt less since the pandemic began, 51% believe their education will be delayed, and 9% feared their education would suffer and might even fail.
The European Youth Blueprint to recovery recommends moving to a more holistic approach to social inclusion as well as increasing support to quality citizenship education. In terms of youth participation, it calls for broader recognition of innovative forms of participation both on and offline.
The Mobile Learning Communities project offers an alternative to online learning where young people are stuck at home behind a computer screen by taking learning out into towns, linking learning opportunities to physical places.

The objectives
The Mobile Learning Communities project aim to empower young people to create and share dynamic content tailored to their local context and at the same time allow them to access exciting learning opportunities whilst out and about in their communities.
The objectives of the project are:
1) to train young people in dynamic digital content creation through blended learning techniques.
2) to empower young people by developing citizen and civic competences for a better social inclusion.
3) to train youth workers in embedding the Mobile Learning Communities system in their local context.
4) to provide themed place-based learning opportunities for young people.
5) to Provide analysis tools for youth workers to measure the impact of digital methods on young people.

The result
The project therefore targets youth workers and young people as direct beneficiaries in the 4 countries taking part in the project.
The project will develop several tools in order to achieve the objectives mentioned above:
– Creation of a set of thematic challenges addressed to youth through QR codes
– Training of youth to create digital challenges related to civic and social engagement (creation of digital challenges by youth for other youth)
– Creation of training material for youth workers to adapt the MLC concept to their context (creation of digital challenges by youth workers for youth groups)
– Creation of software for youth workers to measure learning and skills development among youth through the challenges they complete