Social artists: sharing Cultures, building futures Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social artists: sharing Cultures, building futures

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Karakas [7] defines the social artist by the mobilisation of one’s artistic skills in order to bring solutions to societal issues. The role of a social artist is to help people imagine, discover and achieve optimal solutions to work together towards building a better and inclusive world. Numerous researches have shown the positive impact of art and more specifically music, for acquisition and learning processes, for psycho- and socio-affective aspects and for sociocultural inclusion. The right to cultural life and to artistic practices could – and should – be seen as a fundamental right, by giving the same value to Culture and to Cultures.

This project is a strategic partnership between 4 associations which organise sociocultural actions aimed at YWFO through music: La Fenice (IT), Ballade (FR), AMPCSJ (ES) & AkustikUm (BiH). Its purpose it to sensitise and train musicians and interveners in the framework of these associations, to the social role of artists as conveyers of Cultures and builders of futures, as to foster feelings of well-being and sociocultural inclusion among YWFO through music. This project will allow for social artists to be trained in using music as a vector of social cohesion and of well-being.

The participants include 43 (13 FR, 10 IT, 10 ESP, 10 BiH) musicians – for the most part with little qualifications and struggling to find full and stable employment – between the ages of 19 and 70 and working with YWFO. This project will allow the development of participants’ skills and of their musical sociocultural interventions’ quality, along with the development of such activities. Various themes will be addressed – through play activities of non-formal education and interventions by experts: sociocultural characteristics of YWFO, youth policies, hygiene and safety standards, pedagogic tools (musical repertoire, pedagogic activities)… It will also enable networking between musician interveners working with YWFO, who will be able to discuss their practices during the project, but also after it has ended.

A steering committee (comprising 3 members of the applicant organisation and 2 members for each partner organisation) will be in charge of preparing, carrying out and assessing the project. It will attend to the quality and financial management of the project. The committee will meet times for 3 or 4 days of face-to-face work right before or after each phase of the project, and every month through visioconferencing. The sharing of practices of this steering committee is about developing networking between structures working towards the same goal, to allow the sharing of management and communication tools, of collaborative tools and platforms and of practices (setting up a common charter explaining the means needed to ensure the correct functioning of activities: hygiene standards, safety rules and rules of procedure…).

The project will be carried out in 4 phases of one week each:
1. In Italy in January 2021, the exchange will cover childhood and adolescence of YWFO.
2. In France in May 2021, the exchange will cover the special issues encountered by YWFO whether they are migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors or Travellers.
3. In Spain in February 2022, the exchange will cover special needs youth (ill, disabled).
4. In Bosnia-Herzegovina in May 2022, the exchange will cover Inclusion and well-being of YWFO, peer instruction and impact assessment of sociocultural actions via music.
Between phases, participants will continue sharing practices, including the pedagogic tools that they use during their sociocultural actions with YWFO through small groups of four (1 of each country) and thanks to various collaborative tools.

This collaboration will be facilitated by the use:
• Of collaborative tools:
o For the committee: Gantter project, EPALE, Trello, Framasoft, social networks public pages, Zoom
o For participants: Padlet, Google Drive, social networks private groups, Zoom
• Of assessment tools:
o Of participants’ skills: YouthPass, EuroPass, PORTOLANO
o Of YWFOs’ feelings of well-being and inclusion: questionnaire set up in partnership with the UHA

The visibility of the project will promote dissemination of these actions with other structures and musicians working with YWFO. In the current context of global health and social crisis, the social impact of social artists who were trained to welcome and value excluded publics, will encourage restoring social connections at a post-confinement European scale. The goal of this project is to build a Europe of Cultures, inclusive and benevolent.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 163635 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ballade & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Udruzenje “akustikUm”
• ASOCIACION DE MADRES Y PADRES DE ALUMNOS DEL CONSERVATORIO PROFESIONALY ESCUELA DE MUSICA DE SAN JAVIER
• APS LAFENICE ASD