Theatre Pitching for Employment Erasmus Project

Project Title

Theatre Pitching for Employment

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Inclusion – equity; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Theatre Pitching for Employment (THE PITCH) is an international Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership focused on sharing knowledge and practice of “pitching” between partner organisations from Croatia (Zagreb), Turkey (Antalya), Slovenia (Maribor), Poland (Krakow), and two from Greece (Thessaloniki and Athens). More precisely, it is a partnership of NGO’s, public cultural organisations, tertiary education institutions, and organisations working with/for the unemployed, who have come together to share their knowledge and achieve their compatible educational goals through combining drama and inclusive practices with exciting presentation technique of “pitching”.
Pitching is one of the most important skills at the labour market (if not The crucial one) – as anyone who has looked for a job can attest for. Knowing how to present yourself (or your project) in a concise, confident and interesting way can make or break job interviews, crowdfunding opportunities, and project presentations. By having their educators join these workshops, partner organisations raise their human resources (by raising the self-esteem and soft- skills of their educators) and improve their and EU Key competences (especially social and civic competences, cultural awareness and expression, entrepreneurship, English language etc.).
To achieve its educational and sharing goals, each of the partner organisations hosted one short-term learning, teaching, and training programmes (LTT, i.e. educational theatre pitching workshops). The educational process in these workshops gave pitching a little “twist”, in order to make it “real” -each of the workshops ended with a Pitching forum – a live pitching programme that was livestreamed online to a global audience of interested individuals. Pitching forums were run by local jury panels who gave the participants positive feedback on their pitch – which ensured competitive and fun educational environment for the participants. Feeling positive, participants pitched (presented) their project proposals for tackling some of explored topics of marginalised people at a labour market in Europe. As such, Pitching Forums were not only also sites of training for educators and marginalised groups, but also sites for promotion of creativity, EU and European values.
In order to act inclusively, each partner made sure to address one of the local issues of marginalisation and discrimination at the labour market, and involved few members of the local marginalised groups in workshops – as local participants (mostly unemployed youth and people with disability).
Regardless if they are local or international participants, participants’ feedback shows that joining THE PITCH workshops contributed to raising of their self-esteem, thought them new and useful skills (be it in their work as educators, or at the labour market). Participants learned how to use their body language and nonverbal communication and improve their pitch – effectively helping them in their educational work and/or at the labour market. Having to present their own projects in front of a live (online) audience, in a fast-changing format and in English language, was experience that developed their personal and professional skills and/or motivated them to join the labour market or even start their own business.
Empowered by this experience, participants organised local presentations and workshops where they transferred their newly gained knowledge from international to local level. It must be said that this partnership was heavily influenced by force majeure circumstances since long before COVID-19, and it still managed to finish most of what was planned – empowering partner organisations additionally, supporting their future cooperation, and teaching them to be open to use of online education.
In total, seven educational workshops (7 LTT) were held, where 112 participants (those on international mobilities and local participants), including participants with fewer opportunities (4) and participants with disability (7) got to learn pitching and not only learn but also act inclusively.
Additionally, partners hosted three (3) transnational project meetings (TPM) intended for monitoring, planning, and management. This ensured continuous communication and monitoring, which proved to be crucial in these difficult times of COVID-19.
Even though this partnership was held under difficult circumstances (force majeure caused problems since 2019: exit of the Polish partner, earthquakes in Croatia, and COVID-19), partners finished their plan and produced educational materials, e-Manuals (7) and e-Videos (7) from each of the workshops that are published, alongside recordings of livestreams of all Pitching Forums (7), and remain free open sources available at EU platforms (EPALE, SALTO, and VALOR platforms), and on partners’ websites and social media. Everyone who is interested can use them and pitch for Europe!

Project Website

https://cekate.hr/program/the-pitch_en/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 122042,06 Eur

Project Coordinator

CENTAR ZA KULTURU TRESNJEVKA & Country: HR

Project Partners

• O.C.E.A.N(ORGANIZATION OF CULTURE,EDUCATION AND ADVICE IN NETWORKS)NGO
• AKDENIZ UNIVERSITY
• Politistiko Somateio Proothisis Theatrikis kai Kinimatografikis Texnis Aratos o Soleus
• MEZHDUNARODEN SAVET NA SAMODEJNITESREDISHTA
• FUNDACIJA ZA IZBOLJSANJE ZAPOSLITVENIH MOZNOSTI PRIZMA, USTANOVA FOUNDATION FOR IMPROVEMENT OF EMPLOYMENT POSIBILITIES PRIZMA AN INSTITUTION