Too RecyCOOL for School

(working name RecyCOOL KA2/20 or RecyCOOL lessons)

Project card published on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform on this link https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2020-1-SK02-KA227-YOU-002746

Summary

Project Too RecyCOOL for School connects topics of the fashion industry and sustainability with distance learning forms of non-formal education as a response to demands of today’s world. Our clothing is everyday part of our lives, yet transparency of its production is on a worldwide scale almost non-existable, who made our clothes and what they are made of are questions with answers difficult to find.

Talking about the fashion industry is important because it’s an industry with heavy impacts on environmental and social areas. It’s unthinkable that it could sustain in the form as we know it today, and its flaws were completely exposed with the arrival of a pandemic and social crisis of workers in this industry.

Young people are the main target group of fast fashion campaigns, both selling campaigns and greenwashing campaigns. These are aimed on young people who are trying to and succeeding in living their lives in more sustainable and responsible ways. Finding verified information in chaos around us, picking the relevant parts and connecting them in context is demanding, but doable, as long as young people have the insight into the subject.

This project idea was raised and developed by Star Team, which is a group of four young people, volunteers in Fashion Revolution Slovakia, actively participating in running the organization and its campaign. They are coming from and working with a target group, so they know the needs of young people and ways of dealing with them. Star Team is a connection between organisation and implementation of the project and they will shape and moderate it. Activism, eco-grupos and volunteerism – young people want to solve topics surrounding them, but the topic of the fashion industry is completely absent especially in formal and non formal education. The only way to educate about it is through self-study and following campaigns on social media.

The aim of the project is to widen and deepen young people competencies, obtain their better orientation within topics of fashion industry and its sustainability, its place in the world economics context, understanding the impact of the fashion industry on the environment, society and economy, its connection with our everyday lives and finding solutions (literally) through our own wardrobes. Development of this know-how and skills (evaluation of own user habits, ability to amend own clothing, critical approach to commercial campaigns, recognition of greenwashing, etc) will shift attitudes of young participants of this education.

Outcomes of the project are lessons about the fashion industry and sustainability, usable in formal and nonformal environments by young people and young people with hearing difficulties. Open source lessons will offer cross-sectional education absent in the formal education system, lessons will be reflecting subjects of classic school subjects.
Activities in these lessons will be created the way they are usable in different conditions and youth workers/educators will be able to adapt them to the needs of their target groups. Universality of lessons is guaranteed thanks to their form.

Project primary target groups are young people, young people with hearing difficulties and youth workers/educators working with them. Secondary target groups are educational and edification institutions, formal and informal groups of people with hearing difficulties and all prospective users.
Project will result in a unified package of 50 lessons in text and video form, available for and manageable by young people and young people with hearing difficulties, as well as in methodology on how to use these lessons in work with the target groups.
Other results of the project will be fully educated 100 young people with/without hearing difficulties from partner countries, formation of Star Teams (groups of young people contributing to project activities and activities of partners, each 3-4 members) and their ability to cooperate on international level, fully educated 15 youth workers from 5 partner countries (with own participation on project outcomes, ready to use, disseminate and build on these outcomes), 150 youth workers from 5 partners countries able to use outcomes in their work.

All this will strengthen the educational environment on national and European level and contribute to digitalisation of education.

Details of the project:

Project duration: 1 June 2021 – 30 November 2022 (18 months)

Project language: English

Project coordinator: Fashion Revolution Slovakia

Project partners: 

Fashion Revolution CIC

Fashion Revolution Croatia

Fashion Revolution Czech Republic

Fashion Revolution Hungary

Fashion Revolution Germany

Nitka

• Point of contact: project coordinator Martina Marekova, FR SK, slovakia@fashionrevolution.org
• Outcomes of the project:

Lessons produced in the project are around the topic of fashion and its impact on human and environment rights, as well as offering solutions (or leading towards them). There will be 50 lessons – 10 for each country. After the text lessons are done, we will mix them and test them by Star Team (with experts observing the testing). So we will test each other’s lessons to see how they are understandable to other cultures. After testing each partner will produce video lessons of their own lessons.

• Project timeline and description:

June 2021 – first transnational meeting in Croatia: 1 expert and 1 member of Star Team per partner, meeting is to introduce a project, set the form of lessons and decide which partner is making a specific subject of lessons.

July-November 2021 – creating lessons by experts (each partner separately with their own team).

November 2021 – staff training in Slovakia. Together 18 people joining a 3 day training activity to understand and learn about text lessons produced, methodology on how to use them, basics of work with hearing impared youth, give feedback on lessons and plan testing.

December-April 2022 – testing of lessons. Start Team members in the role of educators will lead online lessons with the target group.

May 2022 – second transnational meeting in Germany: 1 expert and 1 member of Star Team per partner, meeting is to brainstorm, plan video lessons and set the template which will be used (this will not be a strict template, there still will be plenty of space for your creativity).

May-September 2022 – production of video lessons (10 per country)

October 2022 – multiplication events, one in each country. 30 local participants/educators/youth workers joining a one day event to learn about lessons, their use and option of adoption for use with their own target groups. 

November 2022 – third transnational meeting in the UK. This meeting will be the final one to close the project and to meet the whole team and FR leaders from the UK.