GETA

Gaming for Energy Transition of Rural Areas

According to the ‘’Green Agenda for the Western Balkan’’, the Western Balkan is one of the regions in Europe most heavily affected by the impact of climate change and this trend is projected to continue, with estimates of temperature increases of 1.7 – 4.0°C, and even exceeding 5.0°C by the end of the century, depending on the global effort in greenhouse gasses emission reduction. One the main challenges addressed by the Green Agenda for the Western Balkan is the Energy Poverty.

Energy poverty is a significant problem in rural parts of the Western Balkans due to the local population’s unawareness, low level of education in particular energy poor households and low incomes.  The young people with fewer opportunities living in rural areas are lacking knowledge and information on the energy efficiency measures for several reasons: lack of curricula in schools regarding energy efficiency programs, there is a few numbers of organizations (youth workers) in the rural areas, who are lacking capacities to transfer knowledge to rural youth on energy efficiency programs, the level of using digital technologies/ICT from young people is low, language barriers etc.

To address the above challenge the project aims to develop tools and new forms of training schemes to empower youth workers to become energy advisors and train rural youth with a purpose to make a smart energy transition of rural areas.

GETA project is linked to the horizontal priority and environmental sustainability as it approaches a deep perspective of inclusion of youth people with fewer opportunities living in rural areas in the energy sector, meaning understanding the main tools to assess the energy poverty and be able to overcome the energy poverty, boosting employability and start up creation through best practices in energy and sustainability. Additionally, the project is linked with the Digital dimension as it aims using the digital tools to bolster youth workers as energy advisors through gamification tools, who will be able to coach and guide rural youth who face energy poverty across rural communities, in a manner so that they can develop their skills and stimulate real life case studies.

GETA is designed to meet the following European policies:

  • The European Union Youth Strategy 2019–2027 aims at tackling existing and upcoming challenges young people are facing all over Europe. Its objectives are to achieve a society in which all young people are environmentally active, educated, and able to make a difference in their everyday lives. In addition, one of its priorities is to move rural youth forward, establishing a positive image of rural areas.
  • The Green Agenda for the Western Balkan that is about the social dimension of the energy transition addressing households that cannot afford the key energy services to secure a basic stand citizen buy-in. Effective programs should be designed to address affordability issues, reduce energy bills and help the environment.
  • Furthermore, the Energy Community Treaty (European Commission) Report for the Western Balkan on “Follow the European Union in its decarbonization path towards a carbon neutral economy by 2050” underlines that the share of vulnerable customers for electricity ranges from 2,2% in North Macedonia to 7% in Kosovo. There are approximately 3 million wood burning devices using mainly outdated technology, high number of premature deaths, high number of young people living in rural areas or small cities who cannot afford the energy.

Objectives

Empowering youth workers in becoming energy advisors with high quality expertise in the field of energy efficiency audits through competencies related to
energy poverty.

Engaging rural youth in assessing the level of energy poverty and addressing recommendations
for the energy transition
of rural areas
though the GETA app.

Disseminating the results and the methodology of the project with full exploitation of
the possibilities provided by the online environment as well as offline means.

Find out more about energy poverty

Work Plan

This WP is dedicated to all the tasks and activities related to administration, coordination, management and monitoring processes related to the overall project implementation.

This WP is dedicated to the elaboration of project training Format, which will be constituted by a preliminary research phase that will lead to the production of a Research Report. Based on the data gathered through the report the second phase of the WP will be constituted by the elaboration of the draft of the Training Format that will be tested in a set of local training course and finalized after it with the consequent elaboration of the official version of the Training Format ready for official release.

This WP is dedicated to the elaboration of the gamification tool, which will be constituted by a preliminary co-design phase between trained coaches (from the testing phase of WP3) that will lead to the production of the gamification tool. The second phase of the WP will be constituted by the elaboration of the draft of the gamification tool will be tested in a set of local and international events and finalized after it with the consequent elaboration of the official version of the Manual ready for official release.

This WP is dedicated to the elaboration of project Web Platform containing the e-learning course. Preliminary phase will be constituted by the individualization of the modules with consecutive development of the latter. Last phase of the WP will be constituted by the structuring of the modules in a coherent and comprehensive e-learning course.

This WP is dedicated to all the tasks and activities related to communication and dissemination of project deliverables and results achieved as well as networking and promotion of project methodology towards stakeholders.

“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”