Once upon a diverse world

Once upon a diverse world is an Erasmus+ project that aims to encourage the active participation and integration of young people from migrant backgrounds or ethnic minorities, by promoting intercultural dialogue and contrasting racism, xenophobia and hate speech.

Through a transformative journey based on storytelling and social art, young people will find support in bringing out the full value of their life stories and sharing them, whilst protecting their emotional wellbeing.

This journey will help us to develop, over the duration of the project, an online course for youth workers (a MOOC – Massive Open Online Course) and a digital multimedia collection of life stories and experiences of activism, which will be presented and shared directly with organizations of civil society and local communities.

Partner

The lead partner in the project is the Spanish organization Fundació Catalana de l’Esplai, together with Popoli Insieme from Italy and Visual Voices from Cyprus.

The project

In March, a training session was held in Padua for the youth workers involved in the project, during which we tested the MOOC courses together and improved their content.

Today we are delighted to officially launch our MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), a free online course designed to provide practical skills to those working in the social and youth fields

Sessions for Young Activists

The Sessions for Young Activists took place in June; this empowerment programme featured university students from a variety of migrant backgrounds. The aim was to help them recognise the value of their own voices and to provide them concrete tools for storytelling, communication and advocacy, so that they could turn their personal experiences into powerful tools for social change and against discrimination.

Among the various activities we experienced together, we ran a workshop using artistic masks, where each of us crafted our own identity before discovering how encountering others can transform and enrich us.
In another session, we engaged in discussions through circular focus groups, reflecting on the idea of ‘home’ and our roots, on the significance of language, and on the dynamics of relationships in everyday contexts.
There was also the powerful experience of the Human Library: starting by drawing their own life lines, the girls and boys took turns in the roles of ‘living books’ and readers, sharing and listening to life stories in an atmosphere of deep, non-judgemental listening.

We conclude this first part of the programme with a community of young activists who are now more aware and motivated, and we continue our journey with the confirmed belief that intercultural and experience-based dialogue is the key to breaking down stereotypes and continuing to raise awareness in our local communities.

Once upon a diverse world