Back to the streets: recreating connection in the social space

The last couple of years have had a big negative influence on people’s mental wellbeing and especially, the one of youngsters. Frustrations push youngsters to more radical ideas and behaviour and unity, acceptance and inclusion within the EU is suffering. In order to promote and maintain a constructive society in which difference is accepted, we see the need to reconcile people by creating a safe space for debate and organise activities that influence positively one’s wellbeing.

There is a tradition of performing art that can provide just that: Street performance.

The outside space of our cities are accessible to all but the lack of social trust stops many people from engaging in conversation with strangers despite their strong need for social interactions.

The goal of street performing is to capture the attention of a crowd and break the barriers between individuals in order to create a social event in which people are involved, that is interesting, entertaining, make people reflect or discuss, laugh, express themselves…

The goal of this training course is to teach youth worker a combination of social theatre and circus pedagogy activities applicable to the public space. Our project objective is to teach youth workers the codes, methods and practices of street performing (theatre and circus) as a tool of social engagement. The idea is that youth worker will be able to facilitate the creation of street events with youngsters, giving them the opportunity to express themselves, create dialogue with others, recreate social bonds...

We want to enhance the capacity of youth workers to support their target groups by:

• Developing new pedagogical competences in street event, project management and animation techniques that enable them to offer activities and programs that better respond to the needs of individuals and address the needs of the disadvantaged.
• Giving them an opportunity to exchange good practices on inclusion and diversity
• Giving them methods to empower their youngsters to actively participate in their own learning process.
• Developing their creativity