REading and no-formal education: creative methodologies for working with young people Erasmus Project

Project Title

REading and no-formal education: creative methodologies for working with young people

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 2017

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The objective of “Reading and non-formal education_ACNE” has been to experiment, create and disseminate new high-quality methodologies to promote reading among young adolescents in the frame of non-formal education; to promote new scenarios and spaces of expression. It, therefore, aimed to renew channels of participation and dialogue in which adolescents have been able to develop and share interests, concerns and literary curriculum.

To achieve this goal, a 20-month strategy was designed and developed with great success, involving 3 European organizations and their extensive network of local partners (professionals in the area of readings’ promotion and stimulation of literature for young people). They shared good practices, experimented with new methods; they made a detailed analysis of the literature for young people and a diagnosis of the activities to promote reading in this specific context that have been successfully carried out in Europe.

Methodological aspects have been approached from 3 main perspectives, according to the specialities of each of the actors that make up the strategic partnership:

a) creative and artistic methods and strategies;

b) gamification and playful strategies;

c) social research related to oral tradition and local history.

A large number of local initiatives were carried out in the three countries; different strategies and resources were tested and evaluated in direct collaboration with reading groups, youth clubs and cultural associations.

In particular, the issue of the youth literary repertoire was worked through a virtual reading club where reading promotion workers could give their contribution. In this virtual reading club, 6 literary works of proven success were selected and analyzed and commented into the project blog and in of the transnational meetings. It has been a very revealing proposal since it has helped to achieve a better understanding of the literary universe of young people and to guide our professional practice.

“La joven Europa lee y crea” has been the activity that gave the project a special meaning: this mobility program permitted to 23 adolescents from the 3 countries and 7 professionals in the promotion of youth reading to share 7 days of coexistence in Galicia.

Thanks to the mobility we had the invaluable opportunity to test activities, methods and resources created during the development phase of local initiatives; it has therefore been possible to determine their validity and transferability to other contexts and realities, as they have been thoroughly evaluated by the young participants.The results have been extremely satisfactory both for the professionals, who have increased their professional capacities to work with the youth group, and for adolescents, who have developed a clear and unequivocal linguistic, creative and, above all, social empowerment.

An indicator of this success and impact is the creation and consolidation of local initiatives (such as the birth of new reading groups or the continuity of activities developed during the partnership. This Success is tangible also at the transnational level: for example, new projects have been created in collaboration with the adolescents and a selection of those that will have a strong “replicability” character will be submitted to the next Erasmus Plus call. In these new projects they have demanded more commitment and responsibility.

As a result of this process, various graphic and audiovisual materials have been developed. This material will be of great benefit to professionals in the field of youth who consider reading as a tool to fulfil their role: teachers, librarians, monitors and sociocultural animators, social educators, pedagogues, psychologists and psycho-pedagogues, librarians:

A selection of the graphic and audiovisual materials produced by the project is listed below:

-“Manifesto for a passion”: this is an illustrated compendium of reflections and practical recommendations to promote youth reading, the result of several dynamics developed during the Exchange.

– A total of 16 videos in which young people participating in the Exchange share their reading experience and opinions and advice to encourage reading.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 47845 Eur

Project Coordinator

Antaxurada SL & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Associação para o Desenvolvimento de Pitões
• La Corte della Carta