Rurart
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
Looking for: 26 participants
Being residents in one of the partner countries:
Greece, Portugal, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, Cyprus
When:
28 October — 05 November 2024 (including travel dates)
Link to apply HERE (deadline for application: 17th of August 2024)
📖🎨 What is the RURART project about? 🎨📖
The modern world revolves around big cities, but vibrant life also exists outside major capitals. In this project, you will use art and storytelling as powerful tools for change. Young artists, activists and youth workers participating in the project will experience life in a beautiful village in Catalonia where under the supervision of trainers, they will explore the situation of the rural population.
This training combines workshops and a short-term artistic residency. If you have participated in another Erasmus+ project, this one will be a bit different. In the mornings, you will engage in facilitated discussions and thematic workshops exploring topic of youth situation in rural areas and after lunch, you will transform your learnings into your artistic project.
At the end of the week, we will conclude the program with a local exhibition and will celebrate together! 🥳🥳🥳
The aim of the project is to equip 25 young youth workers from diverse backgrounds working with arts or willing to incorporate creative tools in their work, with tools of the art of storytelling, nonviolent communication (NVC), critical thinking community building, artivism and to explore the topic of geographical exclusion in order to empower them to utilise art as a powerful tool for strengthening rural and local communities and to combat stigmatisation of people from rural areas.
Objectives:
- To get participants familiar with the concepts of community building, storytelling, narratives, artivism, social exclusion, nonviolent communication, active participation and citizenship;
- To understand the importance of storytelling in the context of youth geographical stigmatisation;
- To map the realities in the participating countries on the existing prejudices towards people from rural areas;
- To empower youth workers working with arts to take an active role in addressing the mapped challenges that youths from rural areas face and to raise their voices by using creative tools;
- To develop skills of participants in using nonviolent communication, artivism and peace education and critical thinking as tools for building local communities and construction of new narratives;
- To exchange good practices to address social exclusion and discrimination;
- To learn about the richness of rural cultures and using this knowledge to enhance their visibility;
- To raise the employability of the participants with tools of storytelling, public speaking and visual communication;
- To create space for participants to design at least 5 visual projects oriented on the topics of the rural culture and to plan at least 5 dissemination follow-up actions to implement in their local communities;
- To empower youth workers to undertake more activities outside large cities;
- To create a visual testimony of rural life in Solsonès and prepare a physical exhibition in Solsona.
To achieve these goals, participants will undergo 7-day training in Solsona, Spain, the focus will be on art and storytelling. Participants will exchange knowladge, learn from each other, live together and create together.
🙋 This project is for you if you are:
- youth worker working with art or interested in incorporating art in your work;
- professional working with youth and willing to improve your competences in teaching, training and youth work by expanding them for tool of artivism and storytelling;
- active as trainer or educator in non–formal education, especially within youth organisation or association, in youth work activities and in other NGOs concerned with the topic of inclusion of rural areas and rural artists;
- young artist being socially engaged and willing to explore art as a tool for a social change;
- community leader and active multiplier at the local/regional/national level within youth organisation;
- person working in the youth field and are taking the important role of a leader in various youth activities and programs of your organisation and beyond;
- young person from rural area interested in local activism and expressing willingness to multiply the learning from the training in your local community
- young person who believes in positive change in your community, are passionate about issues facing your community; are committed to self-development and are seeking innovative solutions to social challenges connected with depopulation of rural areas;
The crucial factor for selection is ensuring a multiplying effect and feasible outcomes for the project. Therefore, a concept for your artistic project and/or follow-up artistic action that will be prepared during the residential activity in Solsona should be the central point of your application.
What are the costs?💸💸💸
Due to the Erasmus+ program, we can provide you with this unique opportunity for free! We will reimburse your:
- travel
- accommodation
- food (3 meals per day + coffee breaks)
🧑🤝🧑 Meet the team! 👯
Nil Ballarà (trainer)
He has experience in volunteering, since he participated in different volunteering projects all over the world. Because of the experience in an orphanage in Perú, got the inspiration to found Deixant Empremta, and start the adventure to promote volunteering and active citizenship in a rural area such as El Solsonès. He has been training in storytelling and critical thinking for a few years. He has worked with different local artists and has studied the way they promote their art through the storytelling technique. Relating art with the power of stories, awakening all kinds of emotions. He has also started to introduce digital media to his storytelling activities, such as the elaboration of a monthly podcast or the edition of videos to strengthen the impact of the projects and activities. In his free time he is a musician and writer.
Julia Woźniak (trainer)
Julia is a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, specialising in feminism, migration, and the use of arts in activism and peace education. Her academic research delves into cultural diversity, migration processes, and the nature of cultural conflicts, with a particular focus on feminist perspectives.
She is the co-founder of Peace Ambassadors Poland and an educator in the Youth Peace Ambassadors Network, her work is concentrated on promoting and utilising artivism in non formal education and peacebuilding, nonviolent communication and emotional literacy. Julia has conducted numerous workshops on peace education and non-violent communication, both in Poland and internationally. She served as a peace and education consultant for the Council of Europe. She has completed a course on “Storytelling for social change” at the University of Michigan. In her free time she enjoys crocheting and dancing barefoot to Slavic and 80s hits.
Maciej Rotowski (trainer)
Maciej is a member of YPAN and co-founder of PA Poland. He has cooperated with multiple international organizations, including the Council of Europe, as a facilitator and trainer. He has conducted numerous training sessions across Europe for artists and activists, promoting the concept of artivism. A graduate of the Polish National Film School in Łódź (directing department), now he specializes in facilitating creative processes and organizing creative spaces. Since 2021, he also has been running a screen-printing workshop in Warsaw.
Since 2019, his main area of interest has been conflict. In 2023, he became certified as an NVC mediator from Colegium Civitas in Warsaw.
Laia Pujol (junior trainer)
She completed the Bachelor’s degree in Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University, where she specialized in theory and art history, literature, history, and philosophy. Currently, she works as a Catalan language and literature teacher at Institut Mig-Món in Súria, a public secondary education school.
In terms of artistic education and experience, she pursued Professional Degrees in classical clarinet, classical piano, and jazz saxophone at the Conservatory of Terrassa. She has been a music teacher at Àtic Taller Musical for 8 years and was part of the musical group Mabel Flores as a saxophonist from 2017 to 2018. For the past 6 years, she has actively participated in Sallent Municipal Music School, whether in musical groups, individual performances, or the Big Band. Additionally, she is an active member of the Solsona-based theater company Altreatre, having taken part in theatrical productions such as Les bèsties (Solsona, 2022) and Patjades (Solsona, 2023). Currently, she is about to start the Arts degree at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
Her associative and non-formal education experience, she completed the leisure monitor course at the Associació Pere Tarrés in 2017 and did internships at Auró Natura, an accommodation specializing in functional diversity in Solsonès. She has also been an active member of the Grup de Gèneres del Solsonès from 2018 to 2023 (a feminist and pro-rural activist group) and a collaborator with Deixant Empremta.
Furthermore, she enjoys dedicating her free time to other arts such as dance, cinema, and writing, as well as traveling to discover new ways of life.
Organisations involved:
The “Rurart: Empowering Rural areas through storytelling and art” training course is designed and implemented by Deixant Empremta and the Youth Peace Ambassadors Network within the support of the Spanish National Agency of the Erasmus Plus Programme.
Deixant Empremta is a youth organisation based in Solsona (Spain) whose main aim is to foster rural development through storytelling, art and critical thinking.
Youth Peace Ambassadors Network (YPAN) is an informal network of 130 young peacebuilders from across Europe who work with and in conflict-affected communities. The majority of the members of the network are trained on human rights, non-formal education, and conflict transformation by the Council of Europe in the long-term project (2011–2014).
Our Mission: The YPA Network wants to develop a culture of peace by empowering young people, and promoting human rights, dignity, equality, and respect for diversity through education, advocacy, and other non-violent actions through projects at the local and international levels.
Follow us on 👉 YPAN INSTAGRAM👈👉 DEIXANT EMPREMTA👈
Application process!
✨Click HERE to apply and fill in the form.✨
Please be aware that we use AI detectors while reviewing the applications. It is acceptable to check the grammar, but if the content of your answers is AI-generated, the application will be automatically rejected.
DEADLINE: 17th OF AUGUST 2024
CONTACT 📧
If you have any questions write to: info@deixantempremta.org
”Rurart: Empowering Rural areas through storytelling and art” is a project financed by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme. The content of the page represents the views of the author only and is their sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for the use that may be made of the information it contains.
