With the “LEVELup your project” funding call, the Innovation Foundation for Education has set itself the goal of spreading locally tested showcase projects and anchoring them in the education system. There is 320,000 euros from the public purse for this, as well as more than 50,000 euros so far from private sponsors (end of the call for donations: March 1st). Four projects were selected from 80 submissions, the topics ranging from STEM to menstruation.
“LEVELup your project” is intended to enable innovative projects to be further developed financially together with the public sector and to give a larger target group access, for example through the establishment of further locations, certification of the approach or knowledge transfer through training courses or open source solutions. Jakob Calice, head of the foundation created as part of the 2016 education reform, expects “a broad roll-out of the existing educational innovations”, he is quoted as saying in a statement to the APA. With the new possibility of co-financing through donations from companies, foundations or private individuals, the funding pot can also be significantly increased.
The “Hobby Lobby” (www.hobbylobby.co.at), which offers regular leisure courses for socially disadvantaged children and young people free of charge in Vienna, Lower Austria and Tyrol, where they can develop their strengths and develop social skills. After scaling, there should be a branch association in each federal state or a cooperation with existing partner associations.
Research in the library and information suitable for young people
With MINTbib – research and experimentation in the library, the association ScienceCenter-Netzwerk (www.science-center-net.at) introduce children who are enthusiastic about reading – mostly girls – to the topics of math, IT, natural sciences and technology (MINT) and get children with an affinity for technology – often boys – enthusiastic about (non-fiction) books. At the end of the funding period, the offer should be available in at least six libraries in three federal states.
The interactive learning platform Ready for Red by Strawberry Week (www.erdbeerwoche.com) wants to inform young people about menstruation and equal opportunities and improve body awareness and knowledge. The program is currently being used at 550 schools in Austria, primarily in Vienna and Lower Austria. In the future, young people with a migration background should be better reached, for example through more languages and content, and new platforms such as Tiktok should be used. In addition, a stronger distribution is also targeted in the southwest, where Ready for Red is currently hardly used.
Sinbad’s Deep Roots mentoring program (www.sindbad.co.at) more mentor teams, who support socio-economically disadvantaged young people in the transition to further training, as well as more mentees are to be mentored at the existing locations than before.
