Project title: “Аrt of inclusion”
Project Acronym: „ Аrt of inclusion“
Project start date: 01.11.2018
Duration: 24 months
Project end date: 31.10.2020/31.03.2021
Project number: 2018-1-DE02-KA204-005057
Coordinator of the project
BILDUNGSLABOR e.V., – Diepholz, Germany
Partner Organizations
- uniT – Graz, Austria
- Civil Society Organization Eco Logic – Skopje, Macedonia
- Studio Vox Populi – Sofia, Bulgaria
- L’art de la tortue – Rennes, France
Context/Background
Migration has become one of the major challenges in European societies. The effective provision of basic skills for refugees and migrants to overcome linguistic, vocational and social barriers is a key issue. This has lead to a broad supply of language, vocational training and integration courses, mainly offered in adult learning institutions, aiming at providing i.e. basic language, societal and labour market skills. These courses are regularly designed in a hierarchic manner and held as frontal instruction, due to different language levels on behalf of the participants, course size and for many other reasons. During formal training activities, it is hardly possible to express oneself and discuss with each other. Nevertheless, opportunities to actively use the newly acquired language skills are essential for the learning success and thus for the successful integration into the host society.
Additionally, active exchange between refugees and migrants on one hand and native inhabitants on the other on equal terms is needed to foster integration. Arts and arts education can be a means to enable active participation, social inclusion and reflexive exchange between refugees, migrants and other groups of the local communities.
Objectives
The main objective of the ART OF INCLUSION project is to present, exchange, discuss, and promote good practice examples in the active inclusion of migrant communities through arts. The overall aim is to improve the exchange between refugees and migrants on one hand, and local residents on the other hand on socially important dialogue about different cultures, European and other values with the means of arts, i.e. in workshops provided complimentary to compulsory and other regular training offers.
Activities and Methodology
The ART OF INCLUSION project will bring together institutions from different European regions who are working with refugees and migrants in their pedagogical and/or artistic work with different means, and are interested to develop and exchange about artistic offerings (theatre, photo, film, literature, dance, painting, music etc.) complimentary to regular education and training activities (i.e. language training courses). The aim is to improve the active inclusion of refugees and migrants by providing artistic meet and exchange opportunities with the entire local community on eye level, thus supporting the take-up of the language and culture of the host society and vice versa. The project is addressing adult educators, migrants and refugees, and artists from different areas as well as the respective local societies.
Local activities
Each partner is going to develop and implement an individual work plan for local activities, particularly for the local artistic workshops, but as well indicating network activities in the respective organisational environment. The main local activity of each partner will be the local arts workshop planned before, and realized during the respective partner meeting, addressing partner organizations’ representatives as well as adult learning providers and local communities including refugees and migrants. The kind of artistic expression lies in the hand of the partner organisation and the local participants, it can be everything from film or theatre, dancing or singing to painting and statuary. Project partner organisations will contribute to the preparation where applicable.
Documentations of local artistic workshops
They will be done in writing, film, photo, or with other appropriate media according to the respective workshop activity, including interviews, prototypes or similar material. The realization will be made commonly by the project partners (to be agreed and arranged between the partners prior to the respective event). The documentations are going to be presented on the project website and disseminated through different channels, particularly through means of social media. The documentations shall give examples on how arts can contribute to motivation and take-up of language, how the local society can be involved into an inclusive approach for cultural and social exchange, and how such events can be planned and realized.
Results and impact
The impact on individual level on the site of adult learning institutions will be a better knowledge and understanding of opportunities to combine traditional adult learning activities with artistic workshops.
At mid and long term this will lead to a qualitative improvement of, and a higher motivation to take up adult learning offers for migrants and refugees and thus will have an impact on the target groups themselves. At institutional level the impact will be a new culture in terms of realizing state-of-the-art adult learning opportunities for these target groups and beyond. At local/regional level this shall result in an increased level of take-up in adult education from the involved communities.
