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SOCIAL INCLUSION THROUGH ARTS (SITA)

Training Course in Zaragoza 20.10.17 26.10.17

The Training Course "Social Inclusion Through Arts", also knonw as SITA, was held in
Zaragoza (Spain) from 20th to 26th October 2017. The project took place both at the
accomodation site, the ancient Hotel Horus, and the CIEM coworking bulilding, where Mundus
Zaragoza headquarters are. SITA was the result of a follow-up work on another Erasmus+
funded Training Course in Croatia. SITA has been the product of the collabotation between
Mundus Zaragoza Association in Spain and Udruga Mladih Device association in Croatia.

SITA project hosted a total of 21 participants from 10 different countries: Spain, Croatia,
Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Portugal and Poland. The participants
were chosen in regard of their experience among youngsters, especially towards social
inclusion, and their interest and willingness to learn about new methods for inclusion, using arts
and digital competences as a vehicle. The project had also the support of the current EVS
volunteers in Zaragoza, who helped with logistics and participated in most of the workshops.

The main objectives of the project were: 1) To raise awareness on the state of art of social
inclusion in other countries through participants' interaction, offering them a chance for
networking. 2) To share knowledge and learn skills for the daily job with young people with
fewer opportunities through the transfer of practices that can boost participation and inclusion in
the local communities. 3) To provide youth workers creative methods for workshops and digital
methodologies to reach and involve young people at risk of exclusion.

On the first day, the sessions started with some ice-breakers and name games to get to know
each other. After the pretentation of the project, its objectives and the planned schedule fot the
week, the participants could share, through a collective collage, which were their fears,
expectations and foreseen contributions to the project.

To work on the group's cohesion and build the team, two activities were carried out on the first
day. The first one was called "Get to draw each other", in which the participants, in pairs, drew
each one's main features and likes so other could better know who they are. On the second
one, participants in groups had to cooperate in order to build a device, but having a team
member taken one specific ability that made the work even harder.

The second day was dedicated to get into the topic of social inclusion. First, there was a
workshop for the group to define what social inclusion is for them and for the European
institutions. The second activity had much to do with theatre and argumentation methods; it was
the "Criss Cross debate", a roleplay in which the participants had to either support or refuse a
controversial motion in court, even though they wouldn't agree with the role given. Afterwards,
they performed "The Forum", an activity against online hate speech that helped them
understand how it is to be mistreated or set aside by the "insiders" of a mainstream social
group. Those three activities led to very fruitful debriefings and debates that made the group
share and learn the features and difficulties that come up when working towards social
inclusion.

On the third day, the work was focused mainly on the single art of photography and how to use
it to foster inclusion. The metodology "Photovoice" was the one chosen to make the participants
present a specific social issue taking and combining their original pictures. Topics such as
accessibility on the city, abandoned sites and their usage, or public space and children were
brought up. The last session was dedicated to choose the topic of the main outcome: a short
movie about social inclusion they would have to carry out as a group.

On the forth day a study visit took place. The group went to "Proyecto Hombre", a well known
Spanish NGO that works with drug users. Proyecto Hombre's president explained what is the
pattern they established to work with that target group and what kind of workshops (especially
related to painting, music or theatre) they carry out.

The rest of the day was dedicated to produce the final movie. The aim of the activity was, on the
one hand, to acquire the necesary skills for developing an idea from scratch in a creative,

audiovisual form. On the other hand, the movie making was an opportunity to experiment
inclusion inside the very group. This task was, at some points, difficult to achieve, since the
group was working together as a whole and they had to make sure that everyone was included
in the process. Besides, there were limitations on time and resources to complete the task, what
made the planning part even more challenging.

After a discussion, every task needed was defined, and everyone had a role to fulfil. There were
producers, storyboard makers, scriptwriters, a location-set team, music and sound producers,
camera people, a make-up artist, actors and actresses, a time-manager and editors. Then the
shooting started. At that point, the team had been able to overcome the problems that had
come up, such as the challenge of getting a wheelchair in a city they didn't know, or how to deal
with the lack of light or the sound flaws during the recording. Eventually, they brought the raw
material to the editors and helped with the edition process.

The last morning session of the project was dedicated to improving the awareness on
Erasmus+ framework and the participant's associations through a workshop and an NGO fair.
After that, the participants had the chance to work together to create plausible future European
projects and collaborations networks to work on different topics they are keen on. The afternoon
session was focused on the final evaluation of the whole project and feedback giving, using
different methods and activities. At the end of the day, it was time for the movie premire and
the last group gathering at the venue.

Besides the daily activities scheduled on the topic, some other games and leisure activities took
also place during the Training Course. Before every session, the group would have an
energizer. After every afternoon session, they would also have a reflection and evaluation time
in groups. Moreover, there were two intercultural evenings to exchange cultural and culinary
national features and traditions. Finally, at the middle of the week the group had some spare
time to visit the city of Zaragoza.

To sum up, this project brough the opportunity to 21 participants from different European
countries to share their experiences on social inclusion and to learn from others' ones. The most
controversial topics came up during various debates through the whole course, what brought up
the common thought of the complexity of the topic. The participants agreed that social inclusion
requires a very sensitive approach and a lot of individual work must be done while d ealing with
it. Anyway, the group could experience some tools and methodologies to work with people in
risk of exclusion at their local environments and they evaluated very possitive both the personal
and the group outcome and learning.

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