Traces of identity Erasmus Project

Project Title

Traces of identity

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Creativity and culture; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

The project „Traces of identity” wanted to encourage young people to search for peculiarities of their local identity and belonging in their region’s both historical area and contemporary life via cooperation and local research in Poland and Italy. There were two main organisations in the project: UNESCO Initatives Centre from Wrocław and Vicolocorto from Pesaro, however there was also a big role of local organisations involved in the project.
The project was focusing on four thematical areas:

History and archeology are the disciplines that go deep in the search for historical data. Nevertheless, it not always known what kind of research was held in given area and what its outcomes were. We wanted to find it out and make young people not only aware of basics archeological methods but also increase interest in what has been discovered specifically in their regions. Participants took part in oriental game connected with pieces of history; met an archeologist, created performance about the region, took part in a castle festival.

Art is a language of expression widely spoken and spreading in all the possible directions. However, the certain disciplines or techniques start art certain place therefore we wanted to discover the specificness of the regions and find out not only the local branches but also those who got into the history of art and were widely practiced, but to underline their origin. We saw local crafts at the castle festival and participated in ceramic workshop with local artist.

Language is one of the crucial elements of identity. Even though both Polish and Italian are national ones spread in the area of the whole country, we wanted to identify local aspects and show that some lexical or accentual variations make it different. Not only did we share view during workshops, but also via games and everyday activities tried to find some elements in common for the two languages and communicate as effectively as possible.

Last but not least, cuisine was one of the most powerful means to present local identity, due to local or locally seasonal products, way of preparing them, ending up in dishes that motion of that be known or served in one area only. Cuisine has its history and cuisine is an art, so this part of the guide will present both contemporary situation of what’s locally served to people’s palates and how it originated. We discussed Polish and Italian cuisine and food habits and later learned together how to prepare our flag dishes, which later were offered to the guests of the intercultural evening.

The final outcome for each partner was creation of ebook – digital guide book of our small homeland. It shows the effects ofthe investigation and present the traces of local identity. Youngsters chose by themselves monuments and places that they wanted to show. We are really proud of them.

LINK to polish version of ebook https://issuu.com/unescoinitiativescentre/docs/traces_pl
LINK to Italian version of ebook https://issuu.com/unescoinitiativescentre/docs/traces_it

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 15950 Eur

Project Coordinator

Centrum Inicjatyw UNESCO & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Vicolocorto