Objectives

The aim of our project is to address the problems of youngsters with fewer opportunities using art as the main tool. During the project we are planning to work closely with social educators from partner organizations who are involved in work with youngsters with fewer opportunities and who are experienced in the fields of art and photography. Our aim is to activate youth putting them out of their comfort zone and then show this results to the others through art.

During our project art will be used to address social problems existing in today’s reality. The project is planned to take place in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia from 21.08.20 to 29.08.20.
The countries involved in the project are as follows:Armenia, Cyprus, Spain, Montenegro, Israel. There will be 5 participants from each country and 1 leader. Besides we will have volunteers who will take care of logistic and organizational part. As the project is about art specialized youth worker-artists will facilitate the youth exchange. Each group will need to have an artist in their team who will help the participants while carrying out the workshops.

The project will focus on youngsters with fewer opportunities and art as a tool to talk about social problems and draw the attention of members of our communities to them, making them take actions.

The participants involved in the youth exchange will learn, see and explore different types of art, craft, photography, as well they will find out about the problems that youth have in partner countries and try to expose them to the society. The more people are aware of these problems, the more exposure they get and the faster we can solve them. Through these we are planning to make them more active citizens of their communities.

In order to reveal the project theme to the public we are planning to use street art. We consider street art to be a great mean for the public to raise issues and a way to be noticed by the society, that’s why we have chosen street art as a tool of our youth exchange.

We are planning to draw comparison between two types of art: modern and traditional. Theater, street art, craft, photography, illustration will be our tools during the project to achieve our aim. This variation will help to reach to all members of society, from street to theater.

As a result the project participants will understand how modern and traditional types of art can ensure the same results while being addressed to the public.

The activities during the youth exchange will be carried out by the group leaders .The workshops on the following topics will be carried out: Prejudice, Stereotypes, Hate Speech, European values.

The participants will be given a chance to prepare their art works and their own approach to the topic and share it with the rest. The workshop will be done in international groups. But at the same time the workshops will be running parallel so that all the participants have the chance to take part in all of them with the rotation technique.

What will be the outcomes of this project?

-The participants will become gain more competences and understand the huge impact these kind of projects can have on them and their fellows,
-The participants will become more tolerant, thus breaking the prejudices among themselves and making them more empathetic towards youngsters with fewer opportunities,
-To make the participants take their own initiatives, such as the organizations of workshops with the help of the leaders, will be a great opportunity to take their first initiatives,
-The youth will become more culturally competent through the exchange of experiences,
-On workshops about prejudice, discrimination, racism they will be able to see and discuss differences in their examples and use street art as a mean to present it to the public. For these purpose the participants will have open performances for the public prepared during the workshops. The participants will use graffiti, craft and photography. And in the end they will prepare their final product.

During the project we are planning to organize a meeting of participants with local Armenian artists. This will be a good opportunity for them to exchange ideas, share experiences and create a new piece of art together.

The final product of the project will be a public exhibition of art works created during the project. This will help also to share the Erasmus+ information among the locals and the information about the projects happening in Armenia. This will be a good example of youth with different backgrounds coming together for one commonly shared idea and finding solutions to the existing problems.

Activities

There will be 5 participants and 1 group leader from each country. The age group of the participants varies from 18-23 y.o.
These are the types of activities that will be implemented :
-Expectations Intro to participants and environment;
-Ice-breakers and activities to get to know each other
-Team-building and trust-building activities
-Theater, street art workshops activities
-Making performance for the public and graffiti; thematic: prejudice, discrimination, racism, xenophobia;
-Human rights education
-Intercultural learning activities
-Activities concerning prejudice, discrimination, racism, xenophobia
-Evening activities and free time
-Erasmus+ informational workshops
-Final Exhibition

Impact

The project will gather young people from 5 different European and partner countries. For 8 days these young people will have the opportunity to live and work in a completely inter cultural environment in another country. We see this multicultural context as very important for the project. This exchange is non-formal education. By discovering new culture and experiencing difference trough theatre and street art, photography, illustration young people will learn about social, economical and cultural realities of their neighbours, and, consequently, about themselves. This learning is part of the training to be a good European citizen and to develop European values in themselves.
The project will have an impact on the participant developing tolerance, creativity, team building, public speaking skills. That is they will get to know how to make their voice public, whenever they have to tell something. This exchange will give them a skills to develop their professional skills, which take can later use in their professional development, as a start of international experience. The participants will get to know different traditions, will make new friends, will promote European values and will develop European cooperation. And all these brings to one doing Peace and diplomatic relationship between the countries, because youth is our future. And if they are aware of what’s happening around and in the other countries, all the problems will be solved in peace. One of the aims of this youth exchange is to promote the active citizenship of young participants and promote European cooperation in youth field. It tends to develop young people’s awareness of their place in the society; their rights and obligations; and the possibilities to ways to influence the process of decision-making. When this aim is put into multicultural and European context it is also connected with the sense of European citizenship. We are planning workshops on inter-cultural learning in order to give a rather multicultural dimension of the exchange. Thus, we plan to connect it with the European context and to put an accent to the question of active European citizenship.