By Dražen Šimleša,, RIPESS EU General Coordinator

RIPESS EU is active again with the promotion of SSE in Central and Eastern Europe region. The new Eramsus+ project HATI-SOS will continue the work of previous and succesful BuSSE project. This time the focus is more specific and it is adjusted to COVID-19 crises and needed skills in this period. HATI-SOS project is focusing on supporting SSE with the development of alternative educational approaches in four CEE countries (Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary).

This will be achieved by strenghtening cooperation and networking of SSE trainers and activitists. Besides trainings for educators and activitist project will create two interesting materials: A Soft skills cookbook and Handbook for organizers in 5 languages which will also secure longterm promotion of SSE in this part of Europe.

The Soft skills handbook is a material with examples and know-how on successful participation, leadership development and community organising. By that it will help users to enrich and go deeper in the practising of democratic processes, strengthening community relations, establishing better participation in public decision making and the like.

The Handbook for organizers is focussed more on content and steps for planning and organizing large scale events based on participatory, bottom-up practices,  so that participants are able to have space and time for sharing experience, empowering each others, and to ignite new connections, ideas and strengthen the network of cooperation.

Project started from 01 November 2021 and will last till March 2024. Besides RIPESS EU as continental network, as project consortium we have: Utopia from Slovakia as project leader and as project partners Ekumenická akademie from Czech Republic, Fundacja Ekorozwoju from Poland and Profilantrop a Kultúrantropológia Társadalmi Hasznosításáért Egyesület from Hungary.