Objectives
Storytelling is one of the most effective tools at our disposal. Through this project, we aim to provide participants with a common thread that can help unite cultures through stories as a way for integration and cooperation. Youngsters involved in the project will develop many social skills living an international experience, understanding cultural differences and becoming more tolerant and respectful with people from other realities. They will increase critical reflection, integration, and cooperation skills through storytelling. We also aim to promote creativity among youngsters as a tool for self-development and future work skills development, thereby increasing participants’ overall employability. They will also develop more self-confidence, better communication, language, public speaking, team leadership and teamwork skills. We will create a space for youngsters to experiment with approaches and methodologies in non-formal education through storytelling, by exploring it as a specific educational approach. We want to educate people by using non-formal and peer-learning methods to improve skills for personal and professional life. The skills acquired will be lifelong learning. The aim of this project is also to increase youngsters’ ability to use digital tools by connecting youth from different countries: the idea is to use different apps and methods to create short videos about a historical/artistic item in the museum. In this way, we want to raise awareness of the power of digital visual tools as an instrument for creating compelling content and promoting good quality matters online, thereby developing youngsters’ digital skills: they will learn about visual communication channels, digital tools, resources online, and many other instruments we will use during all the Exchange. We will give them the freedom to choose how to create their contents to give them the possibility to express their creativity and make them feel more comfortable in using digital tools as a positive and not just a passive tool.At the same time, we want to increase the active participation of youth in society: we will create debates about the importance of social media, our community histories, and how these things together can make some impact in the small realities. After their participation in the project, youngsters will have acquired skills to be more active in their communities, contribute to change it for the better and raise its social inclusion. They will be more aware about the use of social media as an instrument to revalue their surroundings and cultural heritage.We hope that this project will be a seed that will grow and participants will follow in similar activities or projects to always increase their skills. We also want to make youth opportunities and mobility projects more visible in the local community and in the participants' community too, to always include more youth in the participation in projects and activities in the society.
Activities
5 youngsters from 4 countries and two facilitators: 22 people. The main project activity will be the Youth Exchange, which will take place in a town called Artena in Rome province. Participants in this 7-day project will be from 5 countries: for each country, there will be one team leader aged more than 18 with no limit – preferably a youth worker from the association – and 4 youngsters aged between 18 and 30. Participants with fewer opportunities will have precedence since they don’t have many opportunities to move around the world and live in an intercultural environment: some of our partners work with people who face problems such as social obstacles, economic difficulties, geographical obstacles, and so on, and we will try to involve them firstly. Previous experience in Erasmus+ projects will not be required but it is necessary to have a real motivation to take part in the project and in all the phases. Non-formal education methods will be used. There will be more content-focused activities such as workshops and work sessions, and more relaxing sessions such as energizers and group-building activities. On the first day we will focus on ice-breaking games to start opening up and overcoming cultural barriers; we will also give information to the participants about common living rules, environmental practices to follow, and other logistics. In the next days we will keep increasing the trusting atmosphere through other team-building activities, reflection time, cultural nights, and free time together. The following days participants will be introduced to the world of storytelling and will make group research to inquire about the importance of online social media; On these days, participants will visit the museum and will be divided into small groups: at this point, they will have to choose an item from the museum and start working on conceiving and then creating their story by using digital tools. On the last day, we will throw an event in the museum and make a multimedia exhibition of the contents. At the same time, we will prepare participants for the dissemination and follow-up activities: this way they will share the skills they have acquired and broaden the impact of the project. They will receive the Youthpass certificates to evaluate their learning.
Impact
After the project, participants will be more educated about the use of social media and will understand the importance of online tools to express their creativity: they will increase their knowledge about IT, feel more confident in using digital tools, more aware about the power of social media, and more skilled in using apps to create storytelling contents; they will learn how to get a tangible result from their ideas. They will be able to conceive stories and to develop them in an engaging way. Participants will also develop social skills, teamwork ability, public speaking skills, in order to empower them and increase their overall employability. They will also increase their project management skills by preparing the final event where their products will be shown to the public. Participants will become more adaptable and aware of their skills and the opportunities they have. They will be more aware of the richness of their realities and have different points of view: being back to their communities, they will be able to share these acquaintances with other people around them. Furthermore, they will raise their civic competencies to participate in society, will be more sensitive to issues in their communities, and develop their critical thinking and media literacy. With the follow-up activities, they will have the opportunity to share their experience with their communities. There will be multiple learning outcomes not only for the participants but also for the youth workers: since our learning methods will be based on peer-to-peer learning, they will acquire new competencies and knowledge from participants they will facilitate. For what concerns the organizations, after the project, they will be more experienced with youth and will strengthen collaborations for future projects. They will also acquire more visibility by sharing the results of the exchange on their social media. Finally, they will also learn new things about social media, storytelling, and all the topics related to the project. All the people involved in the project will be more aware of diversity and cultural differences and they will develop more intercultural understanding competencies such as tolerance, dialogue, and communication skills in a foreign language. We will also promote the visibility of the Erasmus+ program and its values – such as inclusion, being active in the community, and participation in society – by sharing content on different online social media to reach many different people. At last, thanks to the project and the participants local organizations will be more alive and innovative, and the contents created will be a tool to promote the results of the activities made together. The local museums and their volunteers will be more innovative with digital tools to promote themselves. People, especially youth in the village, will be more aware of Erasmus+ opportunities and programs.
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