STRIPS on the integration road Erasmus Project

Project Title

STRIPS on the integration road

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The starting assumption of this project was that knowledge of each other’s society, culture, habits, among others, is crucial for a successful integration. The aim of integration calls for efforts by the newcomers to understand and accept the basic values of the receiving society as well as for efforts by the hosting countries to understand and accept the basic values of the new migrants and refugees.
The aim of this project is to develop, by the medium of youth work, social and civic competences among the youth, local and newcomers, to European countries. In addition it aims to respond to the youth priority of promoting high quality of youth work as it has designed, implemented, tested and disseminated an effective education tool able to support youth workers in developing their daily activities and their channels of communication. Finally, the project aims to respond to the youth priority of promoting empowerment and active citizenship of young people, in particular new migrants and refugees, as it supports young new migrants in their inclusion path.
Starting from these core priorities and objectives, the project profile widens its horizon looking at the world around with the aim to promote effective educational tools able to get positive results with people of different backgrounds; to experience an alliance between youth workers centres, educational providers, NGO including immigration and refugee centres and public bodies on the focused issues
The partnership is a multi sector and innovative agreement among 3 diverse organizations: one ONG dealing with immigration issues (Kvinnor Soma Sverige) from Sweden, a social communication agency (Bluebook srl) from Italy and an association whose core mission is integration and European cooperation in the youth field (Integra) from Spain.
Partners worked, along with stakeholders and migration and youth related organizations, in the elaboration, design, evaluation, testing, and implementation of the materials or intellectual outputs of the project.
The project worked on two Intellectual Outputs:
1- A series of 15 comic strips focused on the topics: Cultural codes, habits, intercultural communication, stereotypes and prejudices, and discrimination. In dealing with these topics there’s a special attention to the following elements: Identity, Humanisation of the characters, A bidirectional approach to the process. The medium of the comic strips has been chosen because comics are known to be one of the most powerful and effective communication tools, above all in the youth field.
2- An annexed guide. The guide accompanies youth workers, step by step, through the process of using the comic strips to communicate, educate and sensitize the young target in the mentioned topics. Through it, youth workers will be able, without outside help, to re-process the comics and exploit them with a wide range of different target profiles (in general young people with fewer opportunities) in different contexts and starting from different topics.
Diverse dissemination activities showed firsthand the results of the project in the shape of the comic strips and the guide: dissemination labs to reach a total of 100 youth workers and 3 multiplier events (one in each partner country) with a total of 60 participants from migrant organizations, local decision makers and young migrants and locals. Dissemination through schools network was also implemented and further workshops in the school system are the next step for the materials to be used. They are also available as pedagogical resources in Salto and Epale platforms, in the project website, websites and social networks of all partners.
All the participants in the project have been benefit from the activities developed during the 20 months of the project, and it is expected that the impact will be extensive in time and upcoming projects and events as it open to and would be applied in further projects linking the comic as an artistic expression with other arts and tools as theatre, video or music.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 58226 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kvinnor Soma Sverige & Country: SE

Project Partners

• ASOCIACIÓN CULTURAL INTEGRA
• Bluebook s.r.l.