From Youth Centers to Intercultural Centers Erasmus Project

Project Title

From Youth Centers to Intercultural Centers

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: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Inclusion – equity; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The number of people born outside the EU-28 and residing in an EU Member State as of 1 January 2016 was 35.1 million, and 19.3 million were born in an EU State other than the one in which they resided ( Eurostat, 2017).
In 2017 alone, 171,635 migrants arrived in Europe by sea (IOM, 2018).
A great mobility, which particularly affects the younger generations: on the one hand because they are more inclined to mobility, on the other because a challenge and an opportunity to build an intercultural European Union is born for them.
At the same time, it is an opportunity to empower young people, who can thus increase the skills to live in an increasingly fluid and multicultural society, and to build the future of the Union on an inclusive basis, enhancing the opportunities offered to European society by cultural diversity.
The intercultural perspective is the horizon within which it is possible to follow this path, but it must be implemented in the daily life of young people so that it becomes solid and produces lasting fruits.

The project “From Youth Centers to Intercultural Centers” therefore intended to promote the quality of work in the youth sector, by facilitating the evolution of Youth Centers into Intercultural Centers in the European Union. In such Centres, day by day, young people can live contexts and take part in activities characterized in an intercultural sense.

To achieve this goal, 4 organizations from Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Portugal, with experiences in Youth Centers evolved into Intercultural Centers, joined and cooperated to develop, validate and promote innovative practices and methods to characterize interculturally the activities of the Youth Centers.

The final product of such process is the Toolkit FYCIC, available for free in 5 languages ​​on the project website www.fycic.eu.

The toolkit contains a theoretical section on intercultural education in Europe, with particular focus on the 4 project partner countries. This is followed by instructions on the applied methodology, the general pre-requisites that an intercultural center should have and more than 40 activities based on non-formal education and intercultural dialogue, conceived or adapted by the authors and subsequently validated through pilot activities with young Europeans and migrants.

The development of the Toolkit followed the following steps:

1 Elaboration of draft chapters of the Toolkit

The four partners developed a first draft of the Toolkit based on their experiences and practices previously gained

2 First Meeting in Italy
The partners met, presenting their respective drafts and, on this basis, elaborating a detailed drawing of the Toolkit.

3 First Drafting of the Toolkit
Each partner contributed to the drafting of the theoretical section and a series of activities according to their specific field of intervention

4 Second Meeting in Spain
The activities written in first draft were presented and each partner trained the others on the implementation of the activities he wrote.

5 Creation of local networks, experimentation and validation of the Toolkit
In their own country, the partners have set up networks with associations and local bodies operating in the youth and immigration fields, collaborating in the experimentation of the developed innovation, in order to validate it. 211 young people from 26 different nationalities from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America were involved in this phase, including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as children belonging to ethnic minorities.

6 Third Meeting in Portugal
The different national trials were presented and evaluated. Based on the feedback received from the participants involved, a re-elaboration plan was devised, in order to make the contents transferable to the widest scope of scenarios, different from each other from geographical and socio-economic point of view.

7 Final draft Toolkit
The final version of the toolkit has been written, in English:
Section I – Theory
Chapter 1. Culture and Interculture
Appendix
Bibliography
Section II – Practices, tools and guidelines
Chapter 2 – Methods and application
Chapter 3 – Learning
Chapter 4 – Exchange
Chapter 5 – Active Participation
Chapter 6 – Inspiration box

8 4th Transnational Meeting (held online due to Covid19 restrictions to international travels)
The partners finalized the Toolkit and set up a Dissemination Plan

9 Multilingual translation, proofreading and final edition of the Toolkit
The Toolkit has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Slovenian and Portuguese, then paginated and optimized for online consultation

10 Dissemination
The results of the project were disseminated with events in each partner country, in presence and online, involving 302 people belonging to NGOs, schools and public administration.

12 Networking
A European Network of Intercultural Centers was created to support the adoption and dissemination of the Toolkit

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 114047 Eur

Project Coordinator

Cantiere Giovani Cooperativa Sociale ONLUS & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Asociación Cultural Espacio Plaza Sarean Kultur Elkartea
• DRUSTVO ZA RAZVIJANJE PROSTOVOLJNEGA DELA NOVO MESTO
• AVENTURA MARAO CLUBE