The main objective of ACTin’YouTH is to foster youth workers’ intercultural competences with theatrical methodologies aimed at creating local theatre workshops for the social inclusion of young people with different cultural background at risk of social exclusion.
Youth workers will gain competences in the field of non-violent communication, conflict resolution and facilitation and will develop their communicative skills through theatrical methodologies as well as storytelling circles, improving thus intercultural communication competences and innovative approaches for the engagement of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, in order to tackle discrimination and social exclusion.
Through a welcoming and engaging environment set out in the theatre workshops, young participants will significantly improve their overall communication, collaboration and empathy related skills, but also develop all the 9 competences set by the Lifecomp framework (2020). Through the active participation in the theatre workshops, young migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, ethnic minority groups, will become “young intercultural actors for social inclusion”, significantly improving their self-confidence and motivation, as well as the acquisition of relevant skills and knowledge about European values and different cultures. Moreover, thanks to a interactive virtual platform, all participants will have an additional opportunity to interact, exchange ideas, materials and create a final digital performance.
We believe that intercultural dialogue among young people may be benefited from creativity and performing methodologies, since they learn how to put into practice intercultural dialogue and gain an alternative way of expressing themselves and the cultural traits of the groups they belong to.
Participants:
Youth workers working with young people at risk of social exclusion, in particular with those who have different cultural background or a migration path.
Youngsters, aged 18-30, – recently arrived migrants – refugees and asylum seekers – second-generation young adults – young people belonging to cultural minority groups – young native-born and artists who wish to undertake an engaging path towards intercultural communication. Participants with fewer opportunities are the core target group and main beneficiaries of the whole project structure and design. The project has been designed to put young people at the centre of all activities, making them real protagonists and an active part of the project.
Our specific objectives are:
- develop a theatre-based training course for improving youth workers’ intercultural competences and social skills, aimed at engaging and involving young people
- carry on local intercultural theatre workshops and related on-line activities;
- create a cooperative final “digital performance”;
- develop a collaborative interactive platform and tools;
Priorities
- Skills development and inclusion through creativity and the arts.
- Promoting quality, innovation and recognition of youth work.
- Promoting engaging, connecting and empowering young people.
Our Context:
Youth Workers in all partners’ countries, report being insufficiently equipped for tackling with issues that young people with fewer opportunities and/or different cultural background are facing due to the current situation. Numerous social researches report that young migrants often face serious disadvantages in our societies, such as in the labour market or the educational system. Nevertheless, the experience of our partners shows that during the global health emergency, those young populations have been overly exposed to socio-economic problems, isolation, and to the risk of getting infected by the virus. Moreover, youth workers report long-lasting problems in engaging with this target group in cultural or educational activities, and thus ACTin’YouTH aims at empowering youth and youth organisations by developing programs to foster personal, social and cultural empowerment, with an emphasis on youth engagement promotion, intercultural education and a youth-centred strategy through non-formal education.
Expected results:
- Youth workers from 6 different countries will be trained on intercultural and theatre-based communication methodologies. This youth workers will implement, at local level, local theatre workshops to better engage young people at risk of social exclusion, in particular with different cultural background; activities to peer-teaching other colleagues on these methodologies, in order to make the project impact wider and better relational and communicative skills to apply in their everyday work with young people and effectively engage them in other projects.
- Young people with a different cultural background, taking part in the local activities, will experiment an engaging opportunity to interact with other young people, finding common ways of communication, interaction, mutual understanding and collaboration
- Interactive platform: to facilitate participants from all partners countries exchange their ideas, their outcomes and their materials on the ongoing activities (at local and transnational level), that will remain after the project’s lifespan as a repository of good practices developed during the project and as e-training tool for further Youth Workers and Young People who’d like to approach the methodology.
- A manualthat will collect the results of the projects, the specific challenges and solutions implemented, in order to further spread it at national and international level, particularly addressed to Youth Organisations and Public Authorities that should be interested in creating local intercultural workshops aimed at social inclusion of young people.
- A virtual network of all organisations, associations, informal youth groups working with theatre and performative arts as tools for social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.
- Internationalization of a new methodology.