MiGREAT! Changing the narrative of migration Erasmus Project

Project Title

MiGREAT! Changing the narrative of migration

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Integration of refugees; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Each of the partner organisations are deeply concerned about the rise in anti-immigration sentiment and action across the continent and determined to do something about it.
Giolli is the lead partner that has brought the four organisations together. Each brings a specific expertise. Giolli is one of the lead Theatre of the Oppressed practitioners in the world and has years of experience in anti-racism work.
They identified Elan Interculturel (France), EFA (England) and Nyke (Hungary).
Elan Intercultural brings expertise in fostering intercultural understanding among health professionals and social workers using an approach called Critical Incidents.
EFA combines language and literacy training for migrants and refugees with action for social change. They are experts in Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy and community organising.
NYKE struggle in their national difficult situation using mainly Theatre-in-Educations tools.
All are working with migrants and supporting them to lead complete lives free from discrimination.
MiGREAT! has international learning and professional development at its core. We will share our expertise, learn new methods and bring these methods to a wide audience in order to have a bigger impact in the crucial work of creating counter- narratives around immigration and integration.
We will run six trainings, in four different countries that will reach around 80 professionals. We will reach 100s more through our dissemination (workshops, seminars and conference) and intellectual outputs (handbook, Visual tools and Theatre scripts.
The profile of these participants will be varied and that is one of the key strengths of our proposal. They will include adult educators, theatre practitioners, activists, campaigners, community organisers, pshychologists, social workers and cultural workers. Many of these professionals will be migrants themselves.
The methodologies are equally varied. Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is a set of techniques created by Brazilian theatre director and activist, Augusto Boal. TO fundamentally disturbs the relationship between players and audience. Boal talks about “spect-actors” and states that theatre is for everyone and not just the elites. In TO marginalised people have the opportunity to express the challenges their face in a creative, empowering way and rehearse interventions that can help to change things in real life.
EFA follow the work of Paulo Freire, who was a contemporary of Boal. Freire developed power theories of language and literacy development that puts learners at the heart of the process. He also focused oppressed people and consciousness-raising of their conditions and the potential solutions. Freirean education validates the lives and experiences of the learners and seeks to effect positive change outside the classroom. EFA are doing this in their unique way in London. They are incorporating a community organising approach. This is building power in the community in order to hold the state and the market to account. It is about identifying and developing community leaders in order to take action for the common
good.
NYKE add a specific emphasis on Theatre-in-Education approach that is empowering in the context of life in the 21st
century.
Elan Interculturel bring critical incidents to the group. This is a systematic way to analyse key issues and problem-solve. It
draws from the world of pshychology and is complementary to the methods described above.
We anticipate that the project will be transformative, both for the professionals involved and in turn the people they are working to empower.
When Dermot Bryers, CEO of EFA London, attended a five day training with Giolli on TO in 2011 he returned to London
with a new mindset and a new set of tools to apply to his context. EFA have incorporated these methods into their work, and trained over 100 teachers and activists in TO techniques. We expect a similar impact multiplied many times over. Scores of organisations in at least four European countries and hundreds of practitioners in a variety of fields will learn new imaginative ways of working with migrants to create positive narratives around migration.
The long-term benefits of MiGREAT! will be to help make Europe a more hospitable place for new arrivals for years to come. This will benefit host communities and migrants alike.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 280625 Eur

Project Coordinator

GIOLLI – SOCIETA COOPERATIVA SOCIALE – CENTRO PERMANENTE DI RICERCA E SPERIMENTAZIONE TEATRALE SUI METODI BOAL E FREIRE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• ELAN INTERCULTUREL
• NYITOTT KOR EGYESULET
• EFA London