Author: Bridges Team

The Our Digital Village project is proud to launch the workshop series “Digital Villages: From Vision to Practice”, dedicated to exploring how rural and urban communities can bridge the digital gap. This initiative brings together local actors, civil society organisations, educators, policymakers, and partners from across Europe to exchange ideas, share practical experiences, and co-create strategies for the digital transformation of rural areas.

Two online workshops will take place in autumn 2025, offering inspiration, real-world examples, and practical tools. The first session, How to Start a Digital Village Approach Locally, will be held on 23 September 2025 from 10:00 to 13:00 CEST. It will focus on the initial steps required to design and apply the digital village approach in local contexts.

Register here

The second workshop, Building Digital Skills for Rural Communities, will follow on 21 October 2025 from 10:00 to 13:00 CEST. This session will highlight strategies to strengthen digital skills and promote inclusion and capacity-building in rural communities.

Register here

Participants can look forward to case studies and stories from Ukraine, Italy, Portugal, and beyond, alongside practical methodologies from the Our Digital Village project and interactive exercises that can be directly applied in their own communities. The workshops are designed to inspire, provide hands-on knowledge, and encourage collaboration across borders.

We’re excited to launch OPE – Optimistic Pathways in Education, a new EU project that brings together partners from Greece, Austria, Cyprus, Turkey, and Italy. Our shared goal: to strengthen educational optimism and self-efficacy across schools through a whole-school development approach.

At the heart of OPE are two key concepts:

🔹 Academic optimism – a shared belief in the value of learning, grounded in trust, collaboration, and a strong commitment to student success.

🔹 Teacher self-efficacy – the conviction that one can positively influence learning, which boosts teaching quality, motivation, and professional resilience.

To guide this work, we use the PROSPER framework – a school-based model grounded in positive psychology, defined by seven dimensions:

• Positivity – cultivating a positive mindset
• Relationships – building strong, supportive connections
• Outcomes – maintaining a focus on learning goals
• Strengths – recognising and using individual strengths
• Purpose – fostering a sense of meaning
• Engagement – encouraging active participation
• Resilience – developing capacity to cope and grow

PROSPER builds on the well-known PERMA model and expands it with a practical focus on resilience and strengths – key to wellbeing and learning in school settings.

We look forward to exchanging ideas and sharing insights as OPE unfolds!

#PositiveEducation #WholeSchoolApproach #EUProjects