Inclusive and Accessible Museums Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inclusive and Accessible Museums

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 : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Creativity and culture; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

This Strategic partnership focuses on supporting staff from cultural and youth sectors in using innovative arts and culture methodologies for reaching out and engaging young people with fewer opportunities, particularly young people with disabilities, in processes for supporting their social inclusion and skills development. Through this cross-sectoral partnership, the organizations and museums will develop and test tools that will be used jointly for engaging young people with disabilities in learning processes. The innovative tools will be applied in museums, which will also strengthen the community participation of young people with disabilities and will positively influence their integration in society. During this process, arts and culture will become more accessible to young people with disabilities, and young people will develop their creativity and cultural appreciation. Museums and youth organizations will jointly promote the holistic development of the young person as a member of the community, building cross-sectoral partnerships on a local level and creating sustainable youth development programs that bring innovation in the use of resources and respond to the needs of all young people.

This strategic partnership has a particularly important role in the current state of wide lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Working together in this project, youth organizations and cultural institutions will achieve the following objectives:

– Create integrated educational approaches that can be used by youth and cultural staff to support inclusion and competence development of young people with fewer opportunities
– Support the cultural and youth organizations in becoming more resilient and prepared to respond to other challenging situations in the future
– Strengthen the competences of youth and cultural staff for innovation, adaptation and application of artistic approaches in supporting learning of young people
– Increase the capacities and diversify the methodology of youth organizations so that they are more effective at supporting social inclusion of young people with disabilities through the use of arts and creativity
– Build partnerships between cultural and youth organizations for creating and implementing learning activities using methods from the cultural sector
– Bring culture and arts closer to young people who have limited access to cultural institutions
– Reach and support young people who are generally not involved in more traditional forms of non-formal education
– Show examples of innovation to young people and support them in coming up with future creative and innovative solutions to face risks and challenges

Through a wide dissemination of the outputs, young people with fewer opportunities in Europe will be supported to engage in cultural awareness and competence development processes, and cultural and creative sectors will increase their capabilities for greater social impact, despite the circumstances. The establishing of cross-sectoral cooperation will support the development of youth work and will strengthen its ability to reach more young people with fewer opportunities.

The project will produce three main results: Two new tools that cultural and youth organizations can use to support inclusion and skills development of young people with fewer opportunities, mainly young people with disabilities. These two tools will be produced in the form of intellectual outputs, developed by mixed teams of youth workers and professionals from the cultural sectors. The third intellectual output is not a tool itself, but an e-book that will support other parties in applying the two intellectual outputs in their work. An additional tangible result of the project is a series of video tutorials that will accompany the e-book and will provide visual guidance on how the tools are to be implemented.

This project is a follow-up of TANDEM (Tools And New approaches for people with Disabilities Exploring Museums) – a strategic partnership for exchange of good practices implemented under strategic partnerships for adult education. The project was aimed at improving the competences of museums staff to develop and run inclusive and innovative educational programmes for people with and without disabilities. Four out of six partners were part of that project, and the key staff member from the fifth partner was already involved on behalf of another museum. Hence, one organization is completely new to this partnership.

The project involves partner organizations from Belgium, Spain, Germany, Portugal, North Macedonia and Estonia, as well as associated partners from each country, but from the different sector. The project will train 18 youth and cultural workers and will pilot the innovative outputs with at least 120 young people with fewer opportunities coming from all countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 142655 Eur

Project Coordinator

mu-zee-um vzw & Country: BE

Project Partners

• ZDRUZENIE NA GRAGJANI KREAKTIV SKOPJE
• Fundación Siglo para el Turismo y las Artes en Castilla y León
• FUNDACAO CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN
• Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation
• Stiftung Berliner Mauer – Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer und Erinnerungsstätte Notaufnahmelager Marienfelde