Move Against Rash Statements and Actions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Move Against Rash Statements and Actions

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: Integration of refugees; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Social dialogue

Project Summary

MARSA stands for Move Against Rash Statements and Actions and that is what it was set up to do on the subject of migration and integration.
Incidentally the word “marsa” is of Arabic origin meaning “port” and that has become also the name of localities in Spain, Italy, France and Malta due to historical connections to the Arab world.

MARSA was a strategic partnership of 5 partners from Romania, France, Italy, Turkey and Malta under the leadership of VisMedNet Association of Malta.
It was a partnership that is strong on sharing experience and transfer between sectors including youth, adult education, VET and remedial education in view of the partnerships joint and several experience in cross border projects and networks.

The project was from 2018 to 2020 however due to a successful sustainability strategy the project has a follow up project called The Real Picture that will make the social media public education campaign started in MARSA live longer than the project right up 2021.

MARSA is part of the InternPrize family of projects that all create real life projects for youths to generate curriculum while learning. InternPrize started as an experiment by VisMedNet that later matured into a number of Erasmus projects all following the philosophy of young people interested in the creative industries embark on projects in real competitive / economic dynamic so that learning is immediately a notch in one’s career.

MARSA is a reaction to social changes and migration flows of our times that are now one of the most common subjects of discussion all over Europe. It engaged young people in discussion and social media public education campaign on the subject of migration. This was done with a strategy to educate the masses on the topic running counter to the negative press and communication used in the media when speaking about migration. It strongly countered uninformed opinions expressed widely and wildly in social media. It opened a door to the formation of better and more informed opinions through creativity and young enterprise.

The project trained and gave exposure to youth leaders and organisations and younger generations through joint activities in VET and youth imparting knowledge and skills in:
– product development in creative industries based on market research, audience analysis and professional distribution strategies,
– general media and video production skills with focus on audience and quality under professional artistic direction and
– creation of joint strategies for social education and advocacy through structured social media strategies.

Youth leaders and youths from every partner organisation set up local teams and produce creative content in an enterprise environment and discipline using online collaborative tools. They took part in training that gave them skills on all production and soft skills that they then put into practice in their local activities:
– research and cooperation with experts for the purposes of research,
– cooperation and management in a multi cultural team in a cross border manner,
– media production and all the joint decision making processes that go behind it for the sake of homogeneity, completeness and facility of distribution and
– organisation and self management throughout project activities including organisation of multiplier events for wide audiences.

The activities of the project included:
– a Kick-off Meeting and a training activity for youth leaders and youths about collaborative social media strategies including media production techniques, discipline, research and in the beginning of the project,
– the formation of local production teams for the production of creative content through cross border collaboration between Romania, Turkey, France, Italy and Malta and post production work on still and moving image content intended to educate the viewers about migration starting from the vocabulary that the partners believe is the foundation of all social education about the topic,
– an Interim Meeting to review progress and plan the second half of the project activities,
– three Multiplier Events for the reaching out to the local, regional, national and EU public,
– the commissioning of a music clip by a local artist to boost the social media campaign and
– a forum for conclusion and exploration of future cooperation between the partners.

MARSA created social impact using powerful visual communication tool to provoke the community to discuss the topic of migration and to be aware of how much we tend to express ourselves about migration in a very light minded manner without any form of knowledge, insight or analysis that helps us really understand what we are talking about.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 85640 Eur

Project Coordinator

VisMedNet Association & Country: MT

Project Partners

• ASOCIATIA SCOALA INOVATIEI
• Associazione ValIda
• RESEAU EXPRESS JEUNES EXCLUSION INTEGRATION
• Bolu provincial directorate of youth and sports