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Project DEISY - The Development of European Values for Inclusive Society I has now come to an end. This project enabled MEH to host 4 volunteers from Spain, Italy and Ireland who had the opportunity to take part in solidarity activities, local projects and to make positive changes whilst engaging with the local community in Liverpool. They strengthened their skills and developed values of citizenship, solidarity, equality and tolerance while working on different Erasmus+ project within a multicultural environment. We thank them all for their active involvement and contribution at MEH and we wish them the best for their future projects!

Over the past 2 years, the partners of the KA2 Mobility+ project have cooperated and collaborated in order to successfully achieve the main objective of the project: To enable adult education workers to raise awareness and support their beneficiaries to participate in mobility projects. To do this, the project created innovative, interactive and user-friendly tools. These tools are as follows: The Guide - Information and Orientation to improve adult education workers' knowledge of mobility programmes and projects. The Competence Manual for adult education professionals, which will help them to understand and explain the key competences to their beneficiaries. The Portfolio - Build your international mobility project to help adult education workers link the needs and expectations of their beneficiaries in order to achieve competence building, accompanied by an educational video. The Guide - Valorisation Workshop to monitor the effectiveness of the follow-up of participants after the return from mobility projects and to reinforce the benefits of international mobility for adult education workers. These four tools are complementary and have been designed to help adult education workers to provide optimal, inclusive and pedagogical support to their international mobility participants. The project has had an impact on different target audiences at different levels: Adult education professionals are involved, trained and empowered to support future international mobility participants. Future international mobility participants receive personalised support in order to be well oriented and prepared to benefit from the mobility experience in terms of professional and personal skills and experience. The impact has been on the degree of added value that the development of strong active partnerships between the sending organisations and their network of adult educators will bring to the partner organisations. This has strengthened their cooperation and contribution to the proper orientation and support of the beneficiaries in the adult education sector. Thus, the Mobility+ cooperation project can be considered successful and the tools created will contribute to guarantee the smooth running of the support of the participants in international mobility. The good cooperation between the partners allows the project to be closed under good conditions. A big thank you to all of you for the work accomplished, and we look forward to meeting again on new projects, whatever they may be. For more information contact: Joe Hemington joehemington@expandinghorizons.co.uk Maïlys Joubert mailys.joubert@adice.asso.fr

Presentation to the EU Parliament of the Project “CyberIncluding Goes Europe” From 11th - 15th July, 7 participants from the UK had an opportunity to present the legislative proposal "Bullying, cyberbullying and hate speech: phenomena to prevent and fight", together with 4 other partner Organisations to the European Parliament. Despite not being part of the EU we still feel united in diversity with our European friends under the common cause of cyber bullying advocacy. It has been both a pleasure and privilege to take a transnational approach with young people to advocate changes that disproportionately affect the youth. We, as young people, understand that cyber bullying is an important social issue and we felt accomplished to be able to share our thoughts on the phenomenon. We are hoping to get somewhere with what we have shared and hope to make a change for the younger generations within Europe. Some of us have struggled with bullying before and this topic hits close to home, so it is important for us to be heard. From a personal experience, bullying affects your confidence, well-being and spirit. We don’t want other young people to go through the turmoils some of us have experienced without consequences towards the bully. Having the tragic realisation that we can no longer take part in European projects is extremely disheartening as we feel that we have made changes in the right direction and we wish to continue to do so. However, we look to the future with great hope, knowing that the EU has young representatives who strongly advocate for future policies. We would like to think that this is not a goodbye, rather a Bon Voyage! Authors: Anja Marojević, Sabin Mares, Sana Gubari, Rodolfo III Abedejos, Ellie Leacy, Annabelle Marsden, Samarh Gubar

CONTACT Reach Us Anytime For general enquiries, contact our headquarters today: Tel: 0151 330 0552 Fax: 0151 284 2674 ​ Email: info@expandinghorizons.co.uk ​ 46 Medway New Strand Shopping Centre Bootle, L20 4SR United Kingdom ​ Opening Hours Mon-Thu: 09:30 - 17:00 Fri: 09:30 - 16:00 Sat-Sun: Closed GET IN TOUCH SUBMIT Thanks for submitting!

< Back Peace Barbers Charlene, a qualified barber, and manager at Peace Barbers in Childwall, Liverpool, has recently set up a C.I.C (Community Interest Company) teaching parents of children with autism or other neurodivergent disabilities how to cut hair. Charlene has been a barber since 2015, working at several different venues throughout the City of Liverpool. It was during this time that she met a guy called Martin who explained that his young son Harry had a disability which made it difficult for him to have his hair cut and he would be turned away from barbers. With no prior experience of dealing with people with disabilities, Charlene offered to cut Harry’s hair. The following week, Martin’s wife, Debbie, brought Harry into the shop. On arrival, Charlene sensed that Harry was anxious. He was also non-verbal meaning that she couldn’t communicate as well as she would have with her other customers. She hadn’t experienced anything like this before so naturally, it also made her quite anxious, although she didn’t let Harry, or his Mum know this. By the end of the haircut, Charlene wasn’t quite happy with the final cut but when turned to Debbie to see tears in her eyes. Debbie shared that it was the best haircut Harry had ever had! As Charlene moved to other barber shops, Harry and his family followed even though some of the shops could be busy with long waiting times. Following Charlene’s experience with Harry, she decided to open her own barber shop with dedicated appointments for adults and children with disabilities or sensory issues. This gave her the time and attention needed for each customer putting them at ease and giving them her best service. She has met some of the most beautiful families, each with their own unique story of their experiences within barber shops and is proud to have been featured in the Liverpool Echo https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/liverpool-barber-shop-fiveways-caters-14393721 , she is also ecstatic that the majority of her customers have stayed with her over the years despite the trauma caused by the pandemic. Following the pandemic, Charlene felt that much of her hard work, time and dedication to her customers quickly unravelled. Her customers were desperate for haircuts and to get back into their routine that she was overwhelmed with appointments, however, customers were booking but not turning up. This had a detrimental affect on Charlene’s business and emotional state leaving her disappointed and frustrated. Many customers were feeling as though they didn’t want to leave their homes and were contacting to ask for a mobile service, but due to the overhead costs already associated with the shop, a mobile service was not viable, so customers had to be turned down. It was because of this that Charlene had an idea to rethink and restart by offering tutoring in Basic Barbering Skills for parents/guardians and, carers for children/adults with hidden disabilities. This would teach parents, guardians, and carers to cut hair in the comfort of their own homes, giving as much time as needed rather than the 30-minute slots she was able to offer in the shop. Charlene has already successfully trialled two courses which gained fantastic feedback and led her to set up a C.I.C (Community Interest Company) to provide these services FREE of charge to families who really need it. The course will also apply to teachers within special education schools and any children in hospitals for long periods of time. Do get in touch if this is something you’d be interested in. peacebarbers@gmail.com Project Gallery Previous Next

< Back My full experience in Croatia. Learn about Ellie's inspirational volunteering experience in Croatia. I first thought of doing an EVS in December 2018 when I had decided to stop my studies. I felt as though I needed a big change in my life because I did not know what I was doing. I did not know what I exactly was working towards. Essentially, I didn’t know who I was as a person or what I was like being completely and thoroughly independent. Understandably, I could have felt like this because I am only 19 years old and with people my age (or similar ages) there is this vast amount of pressure to have your life put together and your future to be planned out. However, it is unrealistic; therefore I chose to leave my home and picked Croatia as my EVS destination to discover what I had to offer to myself. In February I started to search for a placement and I had applied for many but initially chose Croatia. Within 3 weeks I heard back from Mreža Udruga Zagor that they had accepted my application and wanted me to join their team as a volunteer. At this point I had just under a month to prepare myself to leave my home for what was originally going to be 12 months. I didn’t think it would be difficult leaving even though I had never been that far away from home before. All of a sudden, it was March 20th; my leaving date. Of course I was nervous because I was going to be meeting a lot of new people and being in a country that is very different to the UK would be nerve racking for anybody. The first three months in Croatia was really exciting. Everything was new, I was living out of my comfort zone, and I had my independence from home which is something I had never had prior. Month one was me basically getting to know who I was working with, getting to know my surroundings in the town, Zabok, and understanding how to say very basic words to people whenever I would be out. For my actual volunteering service I started out by taking photographs of the workshops our organisation would put on in the green room in our building. These workshops would be things like editing videos/photographs, radio jingles, and events about EVS. Other times I would take photos during elections that were happening across different towns in the Zagorje area. They lasted about 2 months as the elections had a deadline. I enjoyed going to the different towns because I was able to see the real suburb areas of Croatia and witness how true Croatians lived. It was a lot different to how a lot of European countries are perceived to be. It was real. Coming up to my fourth month away I could feel a change within myself. I knew I was not the same person who had left the UK. I had already become more confident because I was speaking to different people every day (sometimes not in English) and constantly having to engage in new conversations. One thing I noticed when conversing with new people was that they always asked me the same few questions: “What is it like living in the UK?”, “Where is your accent from?”, “What is your opinion on Brexit?” and “Can you speak Croatian yet?”. All this was like a breath of fresh air for me because I was not used to being asked so many questions and for people to take more interest in what I had to say. Regardless, in my fourth month I had more time to think about what I wanted to do for my personal project. This was something I could do that could give back to the community I was living in and try and leave my mark there once I left per se. So, I decided to tutor English to a few young people who wanted to practice and become more fluent in the language. In preparation to this I had to create materials in which I could teach to individuals. This included such things as: worksheets, PowerPoint’s, grammar exercises, and homework. At this point I realised this was something I had an actual interest in and something I thoroughly enjoyed. One of my favourite parts of my personal project was being able to see my “students” improve and become more optimistic on their English skills. Within the few months after beginning my personal project I had other projects to do in my organisation. I and our other volunteer had to make a video on what EVS means, how it has changed us and why more young people should get involved. For this I was the artist in our video as I drew pictures representing different stages we had hit during our EVS whereas the other volunteer would edit each shot to make it into a short film. Nonetheless, my time abroad was not all work. I had the opportunity to do some travelling around neighbouring countries (Hungary and Slovenia) and a few cities/towns in Croatia (Pregrada, Klanjec, Zaprešić, Donja Stubica, Orahovica, Zagreb etc). It was such a privilege to be able to visit all these places and just delve into the culture that was handed to me. Personally, the travelling aspect is what made my entire experience living in a different country more enjoyable. To top off everything, I had made a realisation in September I wanted to go back home to the UK. I had become homesick and felt as though I had figured out my purpose and what I wanted to do with my life. During the time spent in Croatia I became more self assured in so many different ways. Before I left I lacked self confidence and was lost in a sense; now just over 3 months of being back home I am the happiest and healthiest I have ever been and have been gifted with a lot more opportunities that I will always be grateful for. Sometimes you do have to push yourself until you become comfortable and at peace within yourself which is what I did by moving away for 8 months. A question I ask myself is, “Would I do it again?” and I can one hundred percent say I would. Previous Next