Out of the Box International, in collaboration with 6 other partner organisations and universities based in Belgium, Croatia, Ireland, Spain, Austria and Slovakia have recently launched “SLUSIK: Service Learning Upscaling Social Inclusion for Kids”, a project co-funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ Social Inclusion programme and led by CEV.
The partners’ meeting took place on the 18th of March in the online environment.
The partners went over all the logistical, contractual and procedural arrangements, as well as management tools that are to ensure coordination among the multiple stakeholders, streamline processes and allow efficient implementation of the project activities.
Research and analysis of the state-of-the-art of service learning and how it contributes to social inclusion of young people were also among the meeting’s focuses. The final outcome of an in-depth analysis on the existing practices and curricula in service learning with an additional reflection on the EU related policies, recommendations and results was revised.
In addition, the meeting was concluded with a detailed plan for the implementation of a Teacher and Role Model Training Toolkit in different languages with the aim to prepare the teachers and role models to deliver service-learning modules in schools to young people. The Training Toolkit will include:
-Information about what service learning is;
-Guidance on developing and maintaining relations with local community, and grassroots organisations as well as conducting needs assessments;
-Guidance on how to set learning objectives, social inclusion elements and following “learning to learn” principles;
-Guidance on non-formal education methodology and principles;
-Training framework for the preparation of role models and teachers.
Piloting the service-learning model in schools, along with Quality Assurance, Monitoring & Evaluation procedures and how to ensure the Visibility & Sustainability of the project were also discussed.
The next SLUSIK project meeting has been set for April.
The SLUSIK Project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, is led by the CEV (Belgium) in collaboration with Out of the Box International (Belgium), Rijeka University (Croatia), University of Limerick (Ireland), University of Granada (Spain), University College of Teacher Education, Vienna (Austria) and Matej Bel University (Slovakia).