Future Re-Generation – bottom-up practices of young for urban, social and artistic redevelopment of European territories Erasmus Project

Project Title

Future Re-Generation – bottom-up practices of young for urban, social and artistic redevelopment of European territories

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Rural development and urbanisation; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

In recent years, Europe has witnessed a proliferation of bottom-up initiatives that describe themselves as engines of urban regeneration. Experiences of self-organization, forms of social enterprise, professionalism still not yet “codified” and varied skills that present themselves at stake as territorial development agents. These actions are triggered above all in territories characterized by cultural, social, class, behavior differences, or characterized by complex social issues, such as poverty and exclusion or, again, characterized by a strong industrialization that has affected the identity of a place. It is here that, when the State fails, citizens, who have the skills to activate virtuous processes of regeneration of physical and social spaces, come into play. Today cities are experiencing a strong urban development which is not only technological innovation and “smart” transformation but social innovation, cultural, creative, participatory practices, which works precisely “from below”, by citizens and above all by new generations.
These are the reasons that pushed “Alberto Galizia”High School to activate a European partnership for “Future Re-Generation”. In fact, the involved Schools, “Hadiye Kuradacı Bilim ve Sanat Merkezi” in Turkey, “Konstantin Velichkov” Secondary School in Bulgaria and “Escola Secundaria de Emidio Navarro” in Portugal, operate in districts affected by a strong industrialization, by a marked multiculturalism, social difficulties and problems to which they try to respond with educational activities for young generations.
“Future Re-Generation-bottom-up practices of young for urban, social and artistic redevelopment of European territories” therefore has the aim of “regenerating” the territory through comparisons and activities on the theme ofthe redevelopment of spaces or places by the future generation, that one of young students precisely. Regeneration will be dealt with sub-themes, such as regeneration from an urban, artistic, social and economic point of view.
The project thus seeks to meet the dual need to regenerate abandoned or disused spaces, and, at the same time, to offer young people spaces in which to express sociability, creativity, cultural production and also the creation of job opportunities. Old disused factories, schools which are no longer being used, abandoned neighborhood markets, former barracks can be redesigned in order to offer young people the opportunity to reclaim the spaces but also the historical heritage and memory that the buildings bring with them.
The planned activities will be carried out through highly participatory methodologies, such as research, discussions, cooperative learning, benchmarking, peer to peer, case studies and simulations. Students will be able to carry out visits in the spaces identified, prepare CAD projects, discuss ideas.
At the end of the project, the participants will produce a documentary which will include the space reuse projects with the graphic returns, the artistic and socio-recreational activities to be proposed and the proposal of economic sustainability.
The project will involve a total of 112 students, in particular for each partner school, 28 students in an age range between 16 and 18 years, including 10 students with economic, social and cultural difficulties, who will be able to take part in 4 mobilities lasting 5 days plus 2 travel days, accompanied by 2 teachers for each school. Each physical mobility will be preceded by a virtual mobility on eTwinning and by brainstorming and web meetings to organize the activities.
The impacts that “Future Re-Generation” will have will be registered mainly on the long term:
1) to activate and strengthen the Europeanization process of partner schools through cooperation strategies;
2) to improve knowledge of the foreign language;
3) to enhance European key competences of the participants, with respect to inclusion, sociability and urban regeneration;
4) to increase skills in ITC and in the use of IT tools;
5) to strengthen students’ learning of civil values and participation in the school community.
All participants will also be able to develop soft skills, such as respect for others, interpersonal skills in multicultural and multiethnic contexts, flexibility, autonomy, teamwork.
Such projects can be replicated to offer young people personal, cultural and professional skills’ growth. The development of cities and the continuous cultural and technological change will lead increasingly to imagine the city as a set of places and not spaces, as socio-cultural entities in which people meet, share times, activities, experiences, which need to be redesigned and, from this point of view, intervention from below by active citizens and, above all, by new “Re-Generations”becomes essential.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 116920 Eur

Project Coordinator

Istituto Istruzione Superiore “A. Galizia” & Country: IT

Project Partners

• ESCOLA SECUNDÁRIA DE EMÍDIO NAVARRO
• Hadiye Kuradaci Bilim Ve Sanat Merkezi
• Secondary School “Konstantin Velichkov”