AGORA’ Youth Worker’s Actions in Public Spaces for Social Change

AGORA’ is a Strategic Partnership project in the field of innovation, aimed to develop tools and pedagogical approaches to fight young people social exclusion, and specifically gender-based discrimination, in public spaces settled in isolated areas, by promoting EU values and active citizenship. Thus the project will have a specific focus on “public spaces”: areas potentially open and accessible to everybody where young people can encounter, gather and socialize. They can be the setting both for exclusions and ghettoisation, as well for the concrete practice of democracy and participation. Still the isolated areas we aim to involve in Italy, Romania, Greece, Spain and France, are marked by exclusion, becoming the stage for racism, sexism, bullying and different displays of discrimination. “Isolated area” stands for a big variety of spaces from the suburbs of big cities, “left-out” neighborhoods in small town, more remote or rural areas. AGORA’ will bring concrete actions in these spaces through the implementation of different specific objectives: to build up the local diagnostic to detect the reasons behind gender-based discrimination among young people; to share the existing tools and approaches to promote participation and inclusion; to up-scale them within a newly formed pedagogical perspective, to create an educational package to detect the youth gender-base discrimination and intervene; to empower young people and local communities from isolated areas and to transform them in promoters of new grass-rooted actions.Participants are: TG1 (youth workers, educators, activists), we expect to involve as direct beneficiaries an average number of 300. They do cooperate with their organizations in educational activities. In several cases they are active in urban, suburban, isolated and very populous areas where are more relevant the cases of social exclusion, bullying, racist and sexist discrimination. In the case of the TG2 (young people), we expect to involve as direct beneficiaries an average number of 450. They are youth aged between the 15 and the 25 years old, living in urban, suburban and rural, isolated areas where the youth workers, educators, activists are active. The following activities will be implemented: •A1.Transnational Project Meeting: Kick Off meeting for project coordinators •A2.Country Field Research: to build the local diagnostic and detect the reasons behind youth gender-based discrimination •Intellectual Output1-I.O.1: Toolkit with tools and interactive methods to detect the warning signals in the youth gender-based discriminative behaves and to understand the causes behind the display •A3.-A4. Training Courses: to share and test the existing tools, methods and approaches, to evaluate and up-scale them •A5.Tools Harmonization: to upgrade and systematize the tools and approaches shared•A6.Tools Testing through Street Actions (I.O.2): to test the efficacy of the tools upgraded and fine tuned, using them to activate public spaces in isolated areas •Intellectual Output 2-I.O.2: Handbook on tools and interactive methods, within a newly designed pedagogical approach, to promote gender equity within groups of young people in public spaces•A7.Multipliers Events in Public Spaces: to widespread the I.O.s produced among different relevant stakeholders•A8.Transnational Project Meeting: Evaluation meeting for project coordinators •A9.Follow Up: to wide-spread the project outcomes and implement actions in public spaces, revitalizing isolated areas.AGORA’ foresees the use of different working methods part of a pedagogical approach which combines field and desk researches, non formal education with Street Clowning, Body Movement, Labyrinth Theatre and Social Cabaret, to create an educational package to promote gender equality among groups of young people coming from isolated areas. This approach and package, within a newly designed pedagogical perspective, is marked by a strong flexibility, being based on the participants and learners feedbacks. It is shaped to guarantee the creation of tailor made and coherent learning processes for individuals, groups and local communities. The tools included in the I.O.1 and I.O.2 will be shaped accordingly to a permanent upgrading and up-scaling opening to the possibility of being adapted in different socio-cultural backgrounds taking into account the different specificities and needs.AGORA’ will lead to the following outcomes: better understanding of the reasons behind the young people gender-based discrimination; upgrading and up-scaling of the tools to fight gender-based discrimination; competences development of youth workers and activists to better favour inclusion; enhancement of youth participation and transformation of youth in change-makers; creation of a sustainable informal network and enhancement of interactions among partners to strengthen the capacity of youth work to respond to key societal trends and challenges.