Into the Water Erasmus Project

Project Title

Into the Water

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: Environment and climate change; Creativity and culture; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

The project was a collaboration between the youth groups Acting for Climate (NO) and AcrobACTION (DK), on how to work creatively with environmentalism. We exchanged and developed working methods, competence, experience and skills of artistic work on sustainability. We developed workshops to share these tools, and built an international network of youth who want to use their creative skills for democratic participation. We organized and implemented 5 free festivals on sustainability and art, and we created and toured the performance Into the Water in Northern Europe. We toured with the sail ship Hawila, built in 1935, serving as a clear symbol of the importance of our common cultural heritage and its necessity for a sustainable future. We have developed as individuals and as groups; artistically, socially and politically, and have built long-lasting friendships and collaborations between youth across borders.

Our 3 main objectives have been:
Exchange of skills, ideas and working methods between youth
To inspire others to create a more sustainable world
That we as youth groups, together create a performance of high artistic quality

The collaboration consisted of physical meetings between the groups to exchange experience, knowledge, performing skills, inspiration, working methods, and to develop a common method focused on non-formal learning.

This happened throughout a pre project, a creation period, a tour, as well as workshops. We created an artistic vocabulary together, and built a network of youth, artists and environmentalists in Denmark, Norway and internationally. These networks will live on after the end of the project.

We have established a long-lasting collaboration between the two youth groups, and we have already started several new projects together. Both groups are strengthened in own activities. Acting for Climate has been internationally recognized for combining contemporary circus and environmentalism, and AcrobACTION has grown immensely in both active members and activities.

In addition to artistic development, exchange and experience, we have grown and built up strong competence in project management. This came to include the nuances of financial management, project development, festival planning and organizing, and tour planning and management. The target group and participants of the project were members of the youth groups and youth connected to these. Throughout the tour we reached youth and local communities in the different harbors.

A core team of 6 youths have run and led the project, over 100 individuals participated in our trainings and workshops, over 250 people was directly engaged in making the project come to life, and over 8000 people saw the performance and participated in the festivals we held. Documentation, media and social media have given us a digital reach of more than 1200000 people. We have therefore had the possibility to share our experience and the core values of the process with the world in an aim to inspire climate action.

We have:
Created and toured the performance “Into the Water”
Developed and held workshops in connection to the performance
Collected information, knowledge, and inspiration from other youth groups working with the same themes or skills, and built an international network with and between several of these groups
Arranged meetings with other youth groups and individuals who work with climate, environmentalism, sustainability and performing arts, and established a collaboration with several of these groups
Developed a PR strategy, and had media coverage in both local and national media
Compiled 10 advices on how to combine sustainability and art, and created a video to share them
Compiled 10 advices on how youth groups can work creatively with non-formal learning
Developed a common method for creative work. The method is based on the combination of ideas, experience, techniques and skills of the two youth groups, as well as the experience from the workshops we have organised
Created several videos from the project, including a promotional video, a documentational video and an inspirational video, and shared these on social media
Planned and organized the free festival Havnefest for klima in five of the harbors, in collaboration with local youth groups and organizations
Planned the development of the project, including a new tour by sail in 2021 and a world tour 2022-25

We have planned, conducted and evaluated:
4 TPMs in Sandefjord and Copenhagen
8 trainings (LTT Activities) in Oslo, Fyn, Valdres, Kana, Copenhagen, Helsingør, Ålborg, Oslo
3 workshops (LTT Activities) in Kana, Oslo and Copenhagen
Regular meetings on creative research and development of ideas
Inspiration trips to experience art on sustainability
A 7 week long tour in Norway, Denmark and Germany, where we played “Into the Water”, held workshops and organized festivals in five of the harbors
Finishing work, sum up, evaluation and documentation of the project

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 84821 Eur

Project Coordinator

Acting for climate & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Acrobaction