Common roots different voices: oral stories-telling promoting youth inclusion

The project Common roots different voices: oral stories-telling promoting youth inclusion aims at facilitating the inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities, coming from disadvantage backgrounds from 3 continents: Europe, Africa and Latin America. Furthermore the project aim at empowering the dialogue and the cooperation between youth and youth workers coming from different countries and at creating a deep-rooted network able to realize enduring projects at local and international level.
Through local and international non formal educational activities, such as workshops, discussions, role-plays etc., the project wants to increase young people's consciousness about their cultural and social context, as well as their awareness about personal life skills (social and transversal competences), ideas, objectives and potential as protagonists of their life and their community. Asking young people their opinion and giving them international and local visibility this project wants to turn young people involved from target subjects to multiplier, facilitator, and educator amongst their equals about the project's topics. Promoting their social and personal life skills, as well as their professional abilities concerning ICT tools (through the realization of web-blogs, videos, facebook pages etc) the project aims at promoting the young people's social and professional inclusion. Furthermore, Common roots different voices: oral stories-telling promoting youth inclusion project aims at empowering intercultural dialogue and the youths' consciousness about global issues (such as MDG) and its connection whit local communities' problems.

The theme of the project is the oral tradition and the story telling as a way to preserve the past and to describe and better understand the present, as a way to encourage youth in becoming multiplier actors at local and national level, able to realize networking actions and grass-rooted projects.
Project objectives:
• To promote the knowledge and understanding among young people with fewer opportunities from different partner countries.
• To raise awareness among young people with fewer opportunities about their social rights and the ways to fulfill them.
• To encourage the autonomy, the personal and social development of the participants through non-formal education activities and outdoors activities.
• To use art, especially oral tradition and the story telling as a tool to foster youth participation and understanding among different cultures
• To encourage in young people with fewer opportunities the capacity to aspire and the reinforcement of positive values, including self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
• To aware participants about their role as multipliers of the project results encouraging them to act out this role in an active way with their peers.
• To reinforce the value of non-formal education in contexts of exclusion as a tool to achieve an effective enjoyment of social rights.
• To facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices between youth, youth workers and youth leaders from 3 different continents (Europe, America and Africa).
• To promote good practices and innovative ideas to be used for inclusion and diversity in youth work in the above mentioned regions
• To facilitate the intercultural learning process and the intercultural dialogue
• To create premises for international partnership between groups actively involved at local level
• To encourage the use of art and culture as a tool for inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities and promotion of cultural diversity
• To create a proper environment where young people can share experiences and build up joint /common projects
• To contribute to the development of art and culture related skills of the participants
• To establish the premises for a long term cooperation between NGOs from the countries concerned
• To promote good practices and innovative ideas to be used for inclusion and diversity in youth work in the above mentioned regions

In order to reach our objectives, we will organize workshops that will explore oral tradition and the story telling as a way to preserve the past and to describe and better understand the present, as a way to encourage youth in becoming multiplier actors at local and national level, able to realize networking actions and grass-rooted projects.
Furthermore, through our efforts, we intend to formulate relevant conclusions that will address the needs of young people throughout Europe, and find ways to show themes, Art and-Culture and Inclusion for several reasons. First of all, youngsters with fewer opportunities will be able to use their skills and develop new ones raising awareness at the same time on issues related to the inclusion and cultural diversity. Secondly, these are topics influencing the everyday lives of youth from three continents. Finally, we believe these tools would encourage them to act as multipliers in their local communities. The activities developed will encourage the policy dialogue in the field of youth and the development of partnerships and networks, will produce information and awareness campaigns in favor of and by young people, training and capacity-building of youth workers through non formal training, seminars and conferences with special regard to the themes of poverty, social inclusion, intercultural learning, intercultural dialogue and sustainable development, forum of discussion for youth organizations and multipliers, large-scale events - seminars and conferences in each partner local areas in order to share and disseminate the results of this project within the regional community at local and national level with multiplying effect.

The activities foreseen are:
• regular meetings of the national project teams
• an international startup meeting,
• several workshops realized at local level in participating countries on the theme oral tradition and the story telling. Gathering, collecting oral traditions and stories from each country,
• creation of an Internet portal about topics like intercultural dialogue and youth participation, containing not only information about the project and its activities, but also articles, useful links and other information about the topic of the project.
• 1 study visit,
• a training course on the topics: intercultural dialogue & art and culture as tools for inclusion,
• interactive national exhibitions containing materials and photos collected from each country in order to promote intercultural dialogue through sharing traditional stories.
• good practice manual publishing and project DVD creation,
• dissemination and valorization activities
• evaluation meeting.
The project will be developed in different countries, in the big cities and local communities from 3 different continents Europe, Africa and Latin America and the participants involved will be more than 500.
The activities will: promote different cultures, boost collaboration between youth organizations, and enhance the youth exchange and cooperation.
The results foreseen are:
• to forecast the active participation of young people with fewer opportunities coming from suburbs to the social and community life,
• to empower their capability in developing partnerships and networks, to promote activities encouraging the policy dialogue in the field of youth, to ease intergenerational dialogue,
• to contribute the development of the quality of support systems for youth activities realized by voluntary service organizations in the youth field.
• a strong network of organizations, NGOs and other non-profit actors from Europe and Africa and Latin America will be created and will enhance possibilities for further follow-up projects,
• 1 training course on the topics intercultural dialogue & art and culture as tools for inclusion involving 5 participants from each partner country,
• 1 international study visit involving 2 representatives from each participating country,
• Internet portal on the topics concerned by the project,
• At least 1 national workshop in each participating country,
• One common good practices manual,
• Project DVD containing materials collected during project activities,
• Creation of promotional and dissemination materials,
• 1 international evaluation meeting.
The project will be disseminated at local and international level: in particular at the end of the project will be edited a booklet that will present in detail the actions developed and the linked outputs, in the publication will be also included a t-kit for youth workers active in disadvantage backgrounds.
After each meeting in each organization country will be done dissemination activities through meetings, conferences, seminars, and using web tools (newsletter, mailing, websites, forum, social networks). At the end of the project a final DVD will collect all the know-how produced during the 12 months of activities and a Good practices manual containing experiences from the project as well as oral and traditional stories from participating countries will be published.

As envisaged impact of the project are highlighted the empowerment of the local communities and associations and the creation of a network that could enable the capabilities of local youth and youth worker and that could give them new tools to realize enduring projects with a deep rooted impact at local level and international.
The project strategies foresee a comprehensive approach to the themes of access to social rights, youth participation and fight against poverty and exclusion. It is based on activities that focus on education and advocacy what permits to have both aspects of development work, thus creating a more sustainable impact.
Target group and beneficiaries
Direct target group
160 young young people aged 17-25 from disadvantaged urban areas who live critical situations from the economic or social point of view, with a common consequence: lack of opportunities, poverty and exclusion.
Direct beneficiaries
160 young people, youth workers, NGOs
Indirect beneficiaries
2500 young people involved in peer education and youth workers and NGOs participating in valorization activities