Description of the project
Draw your thoughts – Graphic facilitation & Storytelling to enhance creative and intercultural skills is a project co-funded by Erasmus+ programme (KA2: Capacity Building project in the field of Youth) whose aim is to enhance the professional, social and personal skills and competences of youth workers which will lead to an improvement of the youth sector as well as social inclusion and empowerment of youngsters with fewer opportunities. This will be achieved thanks to the use of creative methods such as Graphic Facilitation and Storytelling in local workshops complemented with international mobility for the development of intercultural awareness and enrichment of the experience of youth workers, youngsters and the final outputs of the project.
Creativity and non-formal activities will be the tools for focusing on the methods of Storytelling and Graphic Facilitation in community context and in working with youngsters, leading to the development of a final raising awareness campaign by the participants involved.
The innovative elements of the projects are:
- Storytelling as a mean of self-awareness and personal/professional development supported by Graphic Facilitation, which will allow participants to convey images, ideas and thoughts through a visual communication;
- The Reciprocal Maieutic Approach, that will be used as a basic methodology of research and self/community analysis;
- Training Course based on visual learning, storytelling and the awareness campaign provided to participants from the partner countries.
The project will involve a total of 9 youth workers from each partner county, who will be the protagonist of each stage: from local workshops to the international training, trough the job shadowing phase, they will be involved as active actors, while also learning a new set of important skills. Thanks to the intercultural approach and tools used, participants will benefit of a life enriching experience that will give them new set of skills and will strengthen their role as youth workers, a role that is essential for fostering young people’s active participation and civic engagement.
ACTIVITIES
- Desk research on good practices on the use of Storytelling as a means of self-expression and personal development and on Graphic facilitation and visual tools in use in youth work and youth organizations in each partner country on the field of social issues, enriched by interviews to experienced educators.
- Creation of “Visual Vocabularies” where each country will collect symbols and images easily referred to specific terms/concepts recognized at national level, to be shared and compared among the different countries-
- Training course in which the participants will have the chance of sharing the research findings collected and analyze peculiarities and similarities and where they will be trained in the use of Storytelling with graphic facilitation for the creation of a visual “Draw your Thoughts database” The training will be conducted using the reciprocal Maieutical Approach and will be the chance for a hands-on the tools and methods.
- Job shadowing: each organization will host an intercultural group composed by one representative for each organization; the job shadowers will support in the creation of a local awareness raising campaign and it is expected that this will improve their intercultural competences and understanding.
RESULTS
- OER/manual development “ST with GF as a method for social inclusion and empowerment of youth”: it will consist of a description of the project and methods, followed by collected experiences and outcomes from the training course and the learning activities as well as containing tips and tools to organize awareness raising campaigns using Storytelling with Graphic Facilitation.
- Local Workshops: based on the content of the Training Course each partner will organize 6 workshops focused on the personal development of the participants on one side, fostered through the method of Storytelling and Graphic facilitation; on the other side community level activities will be developed in the creation of the civic awareness campaign organized in synergy with local youngsters.
- Visual diaries: online blogs where participants will document the visual learning experience of the local workshops.
- 25 youth workers and 240 youngsters will be involved, one third of which will be with fewer opportunities or at risk of marginalization. This number will guarantee a good impact on local and international level.
PARTNERS
- Coordinator: Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy)
- Pistes-Solidaires (France)
- New Hope Waves Limited (Zambia)
- Resource Hub for Development (Kenya)
- Commune de Pikine Nord (Senegal)
