Emolab

Emolab responds to the challenge of how marginalized girls and young women can access quality learning opportunities to succeed by reducing the educational gap in emotional literacy.

Deck of Emotions is a specific educational tool for development of emotional intelligence: 

• A simple, accessible and versatile tool.

• With a method that can be taught and learned, and that also allows evaluating what has been achieved.

• In the framework of a learning community, that give us support, spread good practices and promote permanent innovation.

Providing educators and families a versatile and accessible toolkit for socioemotional learning with a gamefull methodology and a basic training that facilitates its immediate application, we can not only reduce the emotional distress of marginalized girls and young women but improve significantly their educational performance and opportunities for life succes (both them and their children, thus helping to break the generational transmission of poverty).

The risk of poverty in the EU is closely related to educational level (51.5% of children whose parents have a low educational level compared to 7.4% of those who have a high educational level), the immigrant background (33, 7% of children of immigrant origin compared to 16.2% of native born), and underemployment or unemployment (73.4% in households with low employment rates), which affects women more severely (28% of unemployment in young women with little training, compared to 21% of men with the same qualification). [2020 data. Source: Eurostat]

It has been shown (DURLAK: 2011) that the development of Socio-Emotional Learning programs in schools results in not only an improvement in positive social behaviors, a reduction in problem behaviors and a reduction in emotional distress, but also an improvement in the educational performance of 11%. And 87% of teachers are confident in its benefits for the school and life success of their students.

Useful for any child or adolescent, but specially designed and aimed at children at risk of social exclusion, the solution that I propose positively impacts their lives by reducing the educational gap in emotional literacy by providing educators and families with a versatile and accessible tool with a methodology that facilitates its immediate application, and allows previously trained educators to adapt it to their different contexts and specific educational needs.

Using an innovative methodology (which integrates problem solving, socio-emotional learning and gamification), with a solid scientific base (which incorporates the latest advances in neuroscience and socio-emotional intelligence models) and everything necessary to put it into practice ( with training and supervision for professionals and families).

In 2019, early abandonment of education and training in Spain stood at 17.3%. There are still 14.9% of the population aged 15 to 29 who neither study nor work, and the unemployment rate is 16.6%, well above the European average (7.3%).

26% of children under 16 in Spain live below the poverty line (a percentage that increases in single-parent households, 90% headed by women with precarious and low-skilled jobs), a percentage 3% higher than the European average.

They are the main beneficiaries of the solution

Providing a simple and accessible tool for teachers and families (with the necessary training for its use) will increase the emotional knowledge and skills of these girls, will contribute to creating supportive learning environments and will improve their self-esteem and abilities to relate to the environment, reducing their emotional distress and improving their academic performance, which will increase their chances of school and life success.

Using an innovative methodology (which integrates problem solving, socio-emotional learning and gamification), with a solid scientific base (which incorporates the latest advances in neuroscience and socio-emotional intelligence models) and everything necessary to put it into practice ( with training and supervision for professionals and families).

A deck of 36 emotion cards divided into four families that correspond to the four families of basic emotions (pleasure, pain, anger and fear), and that are not simple emoticons, but faithfully reproduce the facial expression corresponding to each emotion according to the study by Paul Ekman, on the face of  9 children (4 boys and 5 girls) whose faces reflect ethnic diversity, and  with the name of the emotions written in four languages (Spanish, English, French and Arabic).

Accompanied, in addition, by 12 action cards that allow to reproduce in the game mechanics the functioning of the perceptual-reactive system and its implications in communication and personal interaction.

With them you can play more than 15 games that make up a learning itinerary in several sessions (the ideal would be a weekly periodicity), where the game experience provides a progressive learning of different competences and skills of emotional intelligence according to the model of Bar On skills (self-awareness, self-esteem, assertiveness, empathy, interpersonal relationship, impulse control, stress tolerance, contrast with reality, problem solving ...), which is evaluated at the beginning and at the end of the process.

The educators who are using it describe significant advances in the development of skills and competences related to emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-esteem, assertiveness, empathy, interpersonal relationship, impulse control, stress tolerance, contrast with reality, problem solving ...) and they find it easy to apply and adaptable also to children with different educational needs (ADHD, autism ...).

Their possible incorporation among the materials used in the Educación Responsable program is currently being evaluated.

Educación Responsable is a program of the Botín Foundation -in which about of 300 schools connected throughout Spain participate in a network- that favors the physical, emotional, intellectual and social growth of people, promotes communication and improves coexistence in schools schoolchildren from work with teachers, students and families.

 https://www.educacionresponsab...

Providing educators and families a versatile and accessible toolkit for socioemotional learning with a gamefull methodology and a basic training that facilitates its immediate application, we can not only reduce the emotional distress of marginalized girls and young women but improve significantly their educational performance and opportunities for life succes (both them and their children, thus helping to break the generational transmission of poverty).

Currently 10 teachers or educators and 180 children

The next year 70-100 teachers or educators and 1400-2000 children.

In 5 years 1000 teachers or educators and 20,000 children

Providing training to teachers from more schools and entities to reach more children, and working in a process of continuous improvement with those professionals and entities interested in networking to support each other and create new developments in our methodology to achieve a deeper impact into the children with whom we work.

- Finantial: lack of financial resources to dedicate myself full time to the project
- Cultural: lack of knowledge about business models (my life and professional experience has been in the world of volunteering, public service and non-profit institutions)

-financial: access grants and awards such as solve, improve and publicize my training offer on emotional education and explore distribution channels for my material

- cultural:continue my business training to shorten the trial and error process as much as possible

Right now I work alone part-time, although some teachers and educators collaborate with me for its implementation..

Because I have developed it after years of experience with the target population of the solution, after studying how to respond to the problem and having the collaboration of different agents involved (teachers, professors, psychologists, educators ...) who have contributed to the design end of the proposal and with whom I have established collaborative relationships for its implementation and expansion

Nebrija Rosales and Nuestra Señora del Carmen schools in Madrid, Madrid City Council Social Education Service, Educar con Felicidad, and Espacio Almate  private offices.

Providing the toolkit and educational materials, advising on its application and receiving feedback of its results

Providing products for educators and families (our educational material) and training and coaching services for schools and social organizations we will generate the income to insure our sustainability and the production of our materials from our training for professionals and families. Eventually public or private grants, and SEL training and coaching services for companies would allow us donating educational material and providing free training for entities and individuals who cannot afford them.

Initially, generate enough income to be able to give legal form to my start-up and dedicate myself to the project full time, as well as to finance the reissue of the materials necessary for its expansion. In a second moment, generate enough market to hire more professionals and be able to scale the solution nationally and internationally.

Because I want to develop my project in a more solid and ambitious way (the mere fact of completing the course and preparing my application has served me to reflect and improve), and I intend to gather the necessary support and funding to consolidate and expand my solution.

I need financial support and know how about bussines model

I seek:

• Schools that have experience of working in Social and Emotional Learning programs and can incorporate my toolkit into their programming,
• universities that can make a larger-scale study of the results obtained
• and entities (public services, associations, foundations ...) that work with children at risk, especially those that consider the gender focus among the axes of their intervention.  

And I need:

Mentorship and partners to improve mi business model, product/services distribution, funding and revenue model, monitoring and evaluation, and marketing.

MIT faculty, CASEL, ... mentoring and assesment

Because I have developed my solution after twenty years of experience with the target population of the solution, after studying how to respond to the problem and having the collaboration of different agents involved (teachers, professors, psychologists, educators ...) who have contributed to the design end of the proposal and with whom I have established collaborative relationships for its implementation and expansion.

The Prize it would allow me to move from the pilot phase to the growth and consolidation phase, and lay the foundations to scale the solution

Because my solution is aimed at reducing the gap in emotional literacy and contributing to equal opportunities, and being based in Spain, Portugal is one of the natural places to start the internationalization of the project