Projects

PAClife – Physical and Cultural Activity for Lifeskills Development

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There is a need for developing transversal skills through education. Transversal skills, also called life skills or transferable skills, are those skills that can be applied in various life domains such as work, family and personal well-being. Examples of such skills are goal-setting, co-operation, communication, initiative, problem solving and critical thinking. It is widely accepted that physical and cultural activities including play, dance and sport can help develop a range of life skills. This is because these types of activities require: problem solving; self/time management; the ability to meet deadlines and/or challenges; personal and collective goal setting/achievement; communication, the ability to cope with success and failure, team/organisational working, and the ability to receive and apply feedback.

The key deliverables for PAClife include:

• Understanding country perspectives through National Adaptation Planning;
• Development of a training course, training the trainers, and delivering pilots to disadvantaged young people and migrant young people;
• Production of articles, workshops and disseminating findings to policy makers and influencers to spread the opportunities of the project beyond the immediate participants.

The first phase of PAClife is to develop a methodological approach and framework for the building of life skills and competences tailored to the needs of low-skilled/low-qualified migrant and disadvantaged young people. The innovative element of this methodological approach is that it will be designed so as to enable the young people to develop the social and civic capacities through physical and cultural activities such as sport and play to enable them to gain a range of life skills such as language skills, helping with seeking employment, social networking skills and the ability to contribute to social participation activities etc. The proposed methodological approach and framework will be easily transferable, as it will be accompanied by a set of concrete instructions providing clear guidance on how to better define the adaptation requirements for a specific country context, along with implementation guidelines, all written up in a National Adaptation Plan.

The second stage of the PAClife concerns the development and pilot implementation of a training tool for the building of life skills for low-skilled/low qualified migrant and disadvantaged young people based on the methodological approach and framework. The training will be designed so that it can be easily used by low-skilled/low-qualified migrant and disadvantaged young people. Through the training, the targeted young people will be involved in physical and cultural activities and will build their ‘social and civic competences’ which have a clear link to critical thinking and also ‘cultural awareness and expression’.

The availability of the training in English, as well as Danish, Greek, Italian and Hungarian, will facilitate the use/uptake of this training by other organisations providing support to migrant and disadvantaged young people in other EU countries. As part of the work, there will be an event to train trainers in the use of the tools with young people. Once the training is completed, partners will pilot the course with young people in their own countries before working towards finalising the course and having it accredited. National workshops have been planned towards the end of the project, to include wider promotion of the project and the course. From this the young people will undertake a placement element of the programme by young people.

The young people will be supported to undertake volunteer placements in the community working within settings to maximise the skills they have acquired working with children utilising physical and cultural activities. This work will take place during May-September 2021 and is a core element of the programme.

In addition, as a result of the project, partners will be empowered to work with their local community around this topic, having trained trainers whom they can work with beyond the project. Young people will directly benefit from the project through the piloting work that is undertaken by the partners. Through effective dissemination, the aim in the longer-term is to influence policy-makers in this area and leave a lasting legacy beyond the project.

“The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”