I-STEP Network

An international network for inclusion

Citizens in Power (CIP) has joined the I-STEP Network as a member organisation, extending our engagement in European and international structures dedicated to inclusive education, employability and civic participation. Headquartered in Alicante, Spain, I-STEP brings together organisations from across Europe and beyond that work to strengthen four interlocking dimensions of inclusion: skills, training, employability and participation.

The Network is deliberately structured around collaboration rather than scale. Admission is decided by the I-STEP Board on the basis of alignment with the Network’s values and commitment to inclusive practice, not on organisational size or geographical location. There are no membership fees or financial obligations. What members contribute instead is accurate information about their work, active participation in the life of the Network, and respect for its values and reputation.

Collectively, I-STEP members employ some 36,959 paid staff, engage more than 2,451 active volunteers, and report an annual direct reach of close to two million people and an indirect reach of over 7.7 million. For CIP, that scale represents something specific: a standing peer group large enough to surface comparable practice across very different education, welfare and labour market systems, and small enough for collaboration to be genuine rather than nominal.

Why this collaboration matters

Cyprus faces a familiar cluster of inclusion challenges: young people distanced from education and the labour market, low-qualified and long-term unemployed adults, women returning to work after care responsibilities, third-country nationals navigating language and recognition barriers, learners with disabilities or neurodivergent profiles whose educational pathways remain fragmented, and rural and peripheral communities with thin institutional provision.

These challenges are not unique to Cyprus, and neither are the solutions. What is frequently missing is not ambition but connection — a reliable route to peers who have already tested an approach, understand the conditions under which it works, and can say honestly what had to change when it was adapted. Project consortia provide this for the duration of a grant. Networks provide it continuously.

I-STEP membership gives CIP three things that project-based cooperation alone does not deliver: a persistent community of practice across 27 countries; visibility for Cypriot practice in an international directory that consortium coordinators consult when building partnerships; and a structured channel for opportunities, consultations and calls that would otherwise be found late or not at all.

The Network’s four core areas

I-STEP organises its work around four core areas, each of which corresponds to an established strand of CIP’s own portfolio.

Inclusive Skills. Building the basic, transversal and digital competences that underpin participation in learning, work and public life. CIP contributes open educational resources, digital tools and STEAM methodologies developed through European cooperation projects, together with NiMATH, the Nicosia Mathematical Museum, as a non-formal learning environment.

Inclusive Training. Equipping educators, trainers, youth workers and civil society staff to work inclusively. CIP delivers professional training through the CIP Training Centre, including programmes funded by the Cyprus Human Resource Development Authority (HRDA/ΑνΑΔ), and develops teacher-facing resources such as the Autism-Inclusive Citizen Science Toolkit produced under the DivEE project.

Inclusive Employability. Opening pathways into work and enterprise for people who face barriers to both. CIP is the intermediary organisation in Cyprus for Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, and delivers entrepreneurship education, mentoring and start-up support to young and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Inclusive Participation. Enabling people to take an active part in community, civic and democratic life. CIP’s work in this area ranges from digital participation tools for adults with functional diversity, developed under the ACTIVATE project, to the use of sport as a route to inclusion under Football for a Chance, and participatory governance in rural territories through the TAPELINE Living Lab in the Troodos mountains.

What CIP brings to the Network

CIP joins I-STEP with more than a decade of practice in non-formal and adult education, entrepreneurship support, digital and STEAM education, and civic participation, delivered through European cooperation projects and directly with learners in Cyprus. Specifically, we contribute:

• Delivery experience with under-represented groups in Cyprus, including young people not in employment, education or training, low-qualified adults, women entrepreneurs, migrants and refugees, autistic learners, adults with functional diversity, and communities in rural and peripheral areas.
• Entrepreneurship and employability methodologies developed and validated in European projects, including business planning support, mentoring structures and enterprise-readiness training, reinforced by CIP’s standing role as the Cypriot intermediary organisation for Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs.
• Inclusive pedagogies for neurodivergent and disabled learners, including classroom-ready Citizen Science approaches for autistic students and digital participation training for adults with functional diversity.
• Digital and STEAM pedagogies, including gamified and technology-enhanced learning approaches suitable for adaptation to inclusion contexts.
• Validation and recognition capacity, including the issuance of digital credentials aligned with the Council Recommendation of 16 June 2022 on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability.
• Dissemination and stakeholder reach through our own channels and our cooperation with public authorities, education providers and civil society in Cyprus, together with our affiliated organisations RITE (Research Institute for Technological Evolution) and the Center for Sustainability (C4S).
• A small-country perspective on adaptation. Approaches designed for large urban systems often require re-engineering for contexts with limited institutional density and small beneficiary cohorts. Cyprus is a demanding but instructive test bed, and the lessons travel to other small member states and island regions.

How CIP will engage

Our participation is intended to be operational rather than nominal. CIP will:

1. Maintain an accurate and current member profile, so that organisations searching the I-STEP directory and map for a Cypriot partner find substantiated information about our capacity and portfolio.
2. Contribute evidence from Cyprus to Network consultations, publications and communication channels, ensuring that the Cypriot and Eastern Mediterranean dimension of inclusion challenges is represented.
3. Respond to opportunities circulated through the Network, and put forward collaboration proposals of our own where our target groups and delivery capacity match.
4. Build consortia for Erasmus+, CERV, AMIF, ESF+ and Horizon Europe actions with Network members whose priorities align with ours.
5. Share validated practice from CIP projects for adaptation by peer organisations, and in turn adapt and pilot practice developed elsewhere in the Network.
6. Connect I-STEP members with Cypriot stakeholders — municipalities, schools, VET providers, employers and civil society organisations — where a local partner is needed.

Policy alignment

This collaboration supports the objectives of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan and its 2030 headline targets: at least 78% of the population aged 20–64 in employment, at least 60% of all adults participating in training every year, and a reduction of at least 15 million in the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. It also connects to the European Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030, the European Skills Agenda, and the inclusion and diversity priority that runs horizontally across Erasmus+ and the European Social Fund Plus. For CIP, I-STEP membership is a mechanism for translating these commitments into tested practice at local level, and for ensuring that what we deliver in Cyprus is informed by evidence generated internationally.