CITIES BY HEART, a unique journey in the heart of cities Erasmus Project

Project Title

CITIES BY HEART, a unique journey in the heart of cities

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The CITIES BY HEART project is in line with Article 3 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states: “The Union shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced”.
As well as Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which gives the Commission the specific task of contributing to the development of the cultures of the Member States while respecting their diversity, while highlighting the ‘common cultural heritage’.

In Europe, successive waves of immigration have shaped cities and their suburbs. The cultural mixes built by the international immigration represent an underestimated treasure unknown by European citizens. In terms of tourism and social issues, this European cultural heritage is an opportunity to seize. Therefore, while it tends to be condemned, especially by arguments from extremist political currents, it should be fully valued.

The project embraces a goal of social inclusion through the very concept of its training offer. It includes a first phase of training “peers”: socio-educational facilitators, actors of multicultural and disadvantaged territories, heads of social centers or associations. Then, in a second phase, it includes a transfer of skills to young underprivileged European citizens who also have a personal background in relation to immigration and encounter problems of integration into the labor market.

The idea is to promote a type of responsible tourism “at zero kilometer” in which protagonists are citizens with a family or individual migratory path (whether new entrants or settled in the neighborhood for several generations) original they want to share.

The project embraces a goal of social inclusion through the very concept of its training offer. It includes a first phase of training “peers”: socio-educational facilitators, actors of multicultural and disadvantaged territories, heads of social centers or associations. Then, in a second phase, it includes a transfer of skills to young underprivileged European citizens who also have a personal background in relation to immigration and encounter problems of integration into the labor market.

These tours are addressed to two types of targets: its primary audience: the inhabitants of these disadvantaged territories, to bring them to an understanding of all migratory strata and this perpetual human movement by breaking down the arguments of “good” or “bad” immigration ; but also to international tourists, in search of new forms of circuits, closer to the population, in order to promote past and contemporary Europe under the lens of cultural diversity resulting from immigration.
The project, regarding the design of its circuits, includes economic actors from urban areas with a strong cultural mix: restaurants, shopkeepers, “host” inhabitants, etc. we visit during the tours.

The objective is twofold: to create a link between the residents of these urban areas to avoid communal conflicts and to trigger an economic dynamic to respond to the precariousness of the inhabitants of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Project Website

https://citiesbyheart.aeva.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123296,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

SUD CONCEPT & Country: FR

Project Partners

• IDP SAS DI GIANCARLO COSTANTINO (ITALIAN DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS)
• QUARTER MEDIATION
• AEVA – ASSOCIACAO PARA A EDUCACAO E VALORIZACAO DA REGIAO DE AVEIRO
• INSTITUTO PARA EL FOMENTO DEL DESARROLLO Y LA FORMACION SL
• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH