SOCIAL INCLUSION THROUGH INTEGRATIVE ARTS Erasmus Project

Project Title

SOCIAL INCLUSION THROUGH INTEGRATIVE ARTS

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities; Integration of refugees; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The integrative arts are a powerful instrument for social change and inclusion, since they are both pleasant and useful for the involved participants at the individual, group, and communal levels and have the potential to produce influential messages to the general public. Having developed their own approaches and good practices in working with their target groups (refugees, immigrants, Roma, disabled, orphans, youths in rural areas, etc.), based on the group creative processes, the project partners exchanged them among each other for the benefit of their organizations, the vulnerable people they serve, and the societies they are a part of.
In this respect, the project objectives were:
– to develop and strengthen the capacity of the partner organizations to provide social inclusion services based on the integrative arts and the group creative processes;
– to increase their ability to work internationally by sharing ideas, creative methods, and good practices in the field;
– to provoke cooperation in implementing and popularizing these effective and innovative practices at the local, regional, national, and international levels;
– to develop important competences of staff members, associates, and served populations such as digital, ICT, social, civic, and creative skills and competences as well as abilities and motivation of representatives of vulnerable groups to get into the mainstream of life.
The project had the total of 52 mobilities, including project partners’ staff members, trainers and art-facilitators, representatives of vulnerable social groups, served by the partner organizations and prospective future partners.
Project activities were comprised of:
– two transnational project meetings held in France and Italy;
– one short-term joint staff training in integrative art-practices and group creative processes suitable for social inclusion, held in Bulgaria;
– one blended mobility of young people, including representatives of the project specific target groups, also held in Bulgaria, in which the participants will taste and experience the training curriculum, previously developed for them at the training event by assembling the creative know-how of the project partners;
– project management and implementation activities, including: preparation and update of all project documents; regular communication with the project partners, stakeholders, and the donor organization; preparation of all international project events; creation and management of a Facebook group of the project and other related PR and outreach work and activities; information and dissemination activities in each project country and at the European level (including organization of a real and a virtual exhibitions of the project participants’ artistic production created during the project training and learning international events, preparation and publication of a material with information about the project in EU on-line platforms, preparation and distribution of CDs with info about the project, its goals, methods, and instruments); project accounting and reporting.
The project methodology was based on the advantages of the integrative arts based on group creative processes viewed as powerful tools for social inclusion and activation. These practices with arts and/or applied crafts focused on involving representatives of various social groups with fewer opportunities in collaborative creative workshops having a series of personal, interpersonal, and (psycho-)social benefits related to the innovative work method, the collective collaborative process, and its inherent group dynamics.
The project achieved results and impacts on participants, partner organizations, their target groups, and other relevant stakeholders at the local, regional, national, and international/EU levels. They included, among other, mastered competences and confident use of collaborative art-making for the purposes of social inclusion and integration; expansion of personal, social, professional, and institutional contacts in the field; assembling a joint sample curriculum in the area of integrative creative processes; delivery of new improved services to project end beneficiaries; popularization of the shared best practices in the partner countries and abroad.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 34079 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fondatsiya “Tsennosti, dobrodeteli, integritet” & Country: BG

Project Partners

• ASSOCIATION INTERCULTURA
• ICSE & CO
• Sdruzhenie “Raznoobrazni i Ravni”