Background
According to the findings published by WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI), which present the dietary habits of 132 489 children, 42.5% consume fresh fruit every day and 22.6% consume vegetables every day. 10.3% of children consume sweet snacks and 9.4% soft drinks on a daily basis. The WHO highlights that action is urgently needed to promote healthy eating habits among children in all the countries of the European Region, especially to increase daily consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.
In addition to this, food preferences and eating habits established in adolescence tend to be maintained into adulthood, which makes increasing fruit consumption among children and adolescents an important public health issue. Unfortunately because of the poor awareness, even when young people consume vegetables and “real food” they still choose ones that are unhealthy: sprayed with pesticides, fed with synthetic fertilisers and those, genetically modified.
The pesticides and synthetic fertilisers in industrial vegetables are causing the long term damage of gut bacterial flora which has a direct, devastating effect on our health and quality of life. Through the output of the project, we believe that Year 2022 is the best time to raise awareness about this topic and educate our young people regarding healthy practices and diet. Furthermore, mobile phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and computers are just some of the devices that are frequently used — often on a daily basis — by a large proportion of the population of the EU, particularly by young people. Unfortunately: Youngsters crave for more screen time, even though recommended daily screen time is 2 hours, (WHO). In 2019 (Eurostat), 94 % of young people in the EU-27 made daily use of the internet, compared with 77 % for the whole population. In 2019, 92 % of young people used mobile phones to access the internet away from home or work, compared with 52 % who used a portable computer in this way.
On the other hand, young people demand more apps, more fun, and even more socialisation through digital platforms. This is a trend everyone is aware of. Some are against it, but we are not neglecting facts, we’re embracing them: Instead of limiting the use of smartphones and screen time, why don’t we encourage using them for good purposes? How? By encouraging the target audience to create their own content and study life skills at the same time. Self expression is a life goal of the youth and the solution we offer will contribute in that a lot. We plan to develop and offer our own rules for digital learning. Because limiting digital is like swimming against the stream. We should use the existing digital trends in order to cultivate positive practices.
“Yourganic Way” project targets to present positive practices to young people by packaging them as fun digital activities. We believe that young people need more vegetables (real ones), more knowledge about what they eat, more positive habits. We believe that real happiness doesn’t originate from the insulin spike from a sugary energy drink, but it is derived from a healthy body and mindset.
The project also provides added value to develop innovative tools for the field of youth through the creation of an informative modules and on how to use gardening and farming in youth work.
Objectives
In line with the priorities of Erasmus+ Program, our project focuses on following objectives:
1. Supporting purposeful use of digital technologies in youth work, through creating the digital education content (informative modules) and a gamified Mobile Application, in the field of organic gardening and healthy diet which will facilitate/support the collaboration and boost positive practices between young people, youth workers and farmers.
2. Educating and engaging young people by using innovative gamified Mobile Application, on the topic of healthy nutrition, sustainable and ecological food production.
The special aims of Yourganic Way project are:
– to encourage positive health practices among youth, through demonstrating engaging and innovative approaches in food production, particularly greens and vegetables;
– to raise awareness of young people on food health issues and inspire them to adopt the most sustainable ways to produce heathy food and prioritise organic produce; and
– to provide young people with a Mobile Application called “My Pet Veggie” where they can grow and harvest their organic vegetables. With real life consequences.
With the implementation of the above work packages, the following outputs will be developed:
O1: Informative Modules, developed by the collaboration of Farmers and Youth-workers
O2: Gamified Mobile Application about DIY Healthy Food and Nutrition.
Activities
The main activities planned for the project have been summarised in four work packages (WP1-4) to provide a clear and complete work program to lead to the achievement of the objectives and planned results:
WP-1: Development of the informative modules (O1) for youth workers as trainers and facilitators (M1-M8):
1.1. Research Activities in order to find out target groups’ needs
1.1.1. Surveying with young people
1.1.2. Interviewing with youth workers
1.2. Development of informative modules (for 4 themes) for youth workers as trainers, facilitator or mentors
1.2.1. Defining of the scope/framework of the informative modules
1.2.2. Development of the informative modules contents (energizer, activities, evaluations and dissemination)
WP-2: Development of gamified mobile application for young people (M9-M17)
2.1. Defining of technical architecture and documentation of the Mobile Application in line with O1
2.2. Defining gamification elements (badges, score, leadership board, awards, avatars)
2.3. Prototyping and UX Designing of the Mobile Application
2.4. Designing the portal in a multi-linguistic structure.
2.5. Development of the the Gamified Mobile Application
WP-3: Local Actions (training seminar for youth workers, digital gamified learning activities for young people) (M9-M19)
3.1. Organising training seminar for 40-60 youth workers.
3.2. Organising the digital gamified learning activities through the mobile application for 100 young people (20 young people per each country).
WP-4: Piloting: Transnational learning activity for young people in Greece (M20):
The leader of WP-4 is iAgroCert from Greece. This work package includes the 20th month of the project. WP-4 will consist of the following activities:
4.1. Selection of participants (12 young people)
4.2. Informing Participants
4.3. Pre-End Knowledge Test for Participants
4.4. Implementation of international learning activity in the field/garden
4.5. Performing face-to-face interviews with participants for feedback
4.6. Analysing Findings and Process Assessment
4.7. Preparation of Pilot Scheme Report
Impact
With the implementation of the above work packages, the following outputs will be developed:
O1: Informative Modules, developed by the collaboration of Farmers and Youth-workers
O2: Gamified Mobile Application about DIY Healthy Food and Nutrition.
Beyond this final expected output, some expected results are summarised to different levels as follows:
Expected Results During the Project:
– Advanced cross/multi-cultural cooperation among the project partners
– Increased capacities and professionalism of project partners in the field of organic gardening, youth work and healthy nutrition.
– Improved management competences and internationalisation strategies of the project partners in the field of youth education
– Increased cooperation and know-how sharing between multi-sector (youth education, digitalisation, organic farming) and cross-sector (NGOs, adult education institutions and higher education institution)
– Promote non-formal and informal learning mobility and active participation among young people, as well as cooperation, quality, inclusion, creativity and innovation at the level of organisations and policies in the field of youth;
– Practicing Inclusion and Diversity Strategy through actualisation of rural farmers living in remorse areas.
They will be active participants of Yourganic Way on both educational resources development and APP functioning stages.
Expected Results After Completion of the Project:
– Increased quality of youth educational support through outputs developed
– Facilitated and more accessible skill development methodology in post COVID-19 period which created a huge demand for healthy practices.
– Changing perception and making the vegetables “Cool” and shareable on Social Media.
– Improved common understanding of relevant stakeholders such as youth education professionals, farmers and facilitators.
– Inspiring youth and contributing to their awareness of healthy nutrition and organic farming.
– Altering the context of usage of smartphones and Social Media, making a passive user into an active one. Boosting user generated content, through implementing new standards of behaviour and trends.
– Contributing to Digital creativity and educational habits that address the issues of health, nutrition and organic gardening.
– More synergy for youth education on mentioned subjects, through trans-sectoral cooperation in the COVID-19 period;
– More innovative products and services developed for the youth education;
– Strengthened links between youth education stakeholders with organisations in organic farming and nutrition.
Expected Results After Completion of the Project in the Target Groups:
– Youngsters, which are aware of possible harmful chemicals in their foods, where to expect them and methods to avoid consuming them.
– Youth, who has developed an understanding of the importance of healthy diet.
– Youth, who, in case of further interest is able to provide them self and society with organically grown vegetables.
– More healthy usage of Social media and technological gadgets, both: Literally and laterally.
– Increased digital literacy. (Farmers)
– Understanding and appreciation of digital platforms in order to sell the product more effectively. (Farmers)
