COmmunity ENgagement for Social Inclusion Erasmus Project

Project Title

COmmunity ENgagement for Social Inclusion

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The project COMENSI – Community Engagement for Social Inclusion – has foreseen the development of strategies and actions of community engagement in five neighbourhoods of Palermo, Berlin, Ljubljana, Lisbon and London. The project’s main objective has been the promotion of participative processes through the realisation of non formal educational activities among a target of 44 adults at risk of social exclusion and the enhance of the professional competences for 22 adult education professionals through the development of innovative learning materials and digital tools.
The partnership of the project, five educational organisations with experience in participative processes and social inclusion, started the activities with the development of a toolkit on community engagement, including:
– the working methodology;
– a collection of methods, techniques and participative tools;
– the description of the five local contexts in which the project activities have taken place.
This educational resource has been tested during the realisation of a learning mobility to train the adult education professionals involved in the following project activities.
After the realisation of this first output the partners have been involved in the development of a digital educational resource, the community atlas, to support the participative processes activated in the five selected neighbourhoods. The atlases allowed a spatial and a chronological visualisation of the neighbourhoods and a collection of cards representing elements of the neighbourhoods (as meeting places, stories, memories, initiatives and proposals) selected with the adults of the neighbourhoods and local stakeholders.
The project allowed also the partner organisations to test the use of neighbourhood hubs, community spaces to promote the active participation of the residents. These experiences have been collected in the neighbourhood hub handbook, which includes a definition of the community spaces, examples of european experiences and indications on how to establish such spaces. The handbook also tells about the experience realised by the partners during the project implementation, and includes useful tips to promote the participation of the target of adults at risk of social exclusion (including also guidelines for communication) and stories collected during the realisation of the local activities.
The project main result has been the realisation of five laboratories and activities of community engagement with 44 adults at risk of social exclusion as collections of proposals to make the neighbourhood better, informal meetings with the residents and community events.
In term of results COMENSI has also promoted an innovative participatory methodology for adults at risk of social exclusion and developed new working tools as the toolkit on community engagement, the neighbourhood hub handbook and the community atlases at disposal of adults education professionals and local administrators at local, national and european level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 263087 Eur

Project Coordinator

BOND OF UNION SOCIETA’ COOPERATIVA SOCIALE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• MAPPING FOR CHANGE CIC
• KULTURNO DRUSTVO PROSTOROZ
• 4CHANGE COOPERATIVA CULTURAL E DE SOLIDARIEDADE SOCIAL CRL
• COLINI-TRIPODI GBR