Consistent migration flow toward Europe are challenging all European and National societies with new inter-cultural challenges.An example of such challenges is the fact that in the new Erasmus+ guide, it is mentioned the need to prepare teachers to work with and in intercultural classes.The need of intercultural approaches and interculturally oriented working methodologies affects not only the educational system, nor only the youth sector. All sectors of European society are and will be always more affected by such a need.At the same time every day and watching the news from different sides of Europe (migrants shot by Police in Macedonia, Austrian politicians talking about building a wall at the border with Italy, etc) it is always more evident that a deep cultural work is to be done, in order to avoid that Europe become always more a fortress leaded by racist and violent policies.The problem we see is related not only to migrants and intercultural-ethnic reality of Europe, but to the development of "fear of difference" and "refusal of difference" raising in different context in Europe.This could be applied to the raising of Islamophobia and antisemitism in different countries, to the never ended racism and violence against Roma, to the refusal of recognizing cultural minorities of any kind.Based on this assumption, aim of the project is to develop a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) gathering together materials from different sources (video, books, training material) and to be made available for different kind of workers, in the field of intercultural and multicultural education.The project will directly involve 95 youth workers and staff persons (19 from disadvantaged background) from 15 partners of 7 countries and will include in total 20 activities (8 aimed at dissemination, 8 at training and 4 at coordination and implementation). Indirect beneficiaires will be about 1.000. 7 learning motilities (study visits) will be aimed to directly train participants and also to gather information, hints and resources for further development of the MOOC.One training activity, which will involve 32 participants, will be used to test the beta version of the MOOC.We will focus on the general subject of facing educational and training challenges in contexts where one or more cultural minority are present: ethnical, linguistic, gender, socio-cultural minorities or also self-determined or self-labelled minorities as the deaf people community or the extreme case of juvenile gangs.All cultural minorities labelled as such due to the existence of languages, conducts and behaviours ruled by codes different from the majority ones.With this in mind, we have identified already some “cultural minorities” whose reality will be dealt with in the MOOC:- socio-economic migrants- political or safety migrants (refugees)- nomads- sedentary ethnic minorities- LGBTQ community- non accompanied foreign minors- deaf community- juvenile gangs- geographically isolated communities- socially isolated communities of big urban areas- young victims of offenceIt is evident that the label “minority” is not linked to recognition of rights (as for the juvenile gangs), nor to the possession of formal standardized requirements.It is only related to the existence of codes, languages, rituals and behaviours which create a tie among members of a group, featuring a “culture” and therefore challenging those who interact with the concerned group and the whole community.The project will have an immediate impact on local communities and will stimulate overcoming of cultural stereotypes. In particular, during the implementation of motilities, local communities, municipalities and representatives of local NGOs will be directly involved, with a potential positive influence on local policies.The trainings will affect those youth workers directly involved and their sending organizations, but it will have a deeper impact, by making it possible to create a MOOC based on a real-life experience.During the last phase of the project, with an information and dissemination campaign, there will be a European-wide direct impact, being exactly this the aim of the campaign itself. Indeed, as said, we target to reach about 65.000, by using all existing tools of InformaGiovani and its partner.Taking into consideration that the target of the information campaign will also include universities and training institutions, we aim to have a positive “contamination” of the formal educational sector at national, European and International level.Themes addressed by the actions, namely educational opportunities and challenges related to cultural minorities in Europe, are nowadays fully part of the debate of the European public opinion and of European Institutions and political stakeholders. Dissemination of the project can therefore influence such a debate among civil society, youth organizations, educational and political institutions.
The main objective of the project was to create a training tool capable of responding to the need to develop intercultural interpersonal skills and abilities for operators and professionals who in their daily work do find themselves operating in multicultural contexts and with minority groups. As a result improve the quality of theirs intervention towards beneficiaries, not only in the context of youth organizations, but also in other contexts educational, such as school, and professional in general. This objective was fulfilled with the realization of MOOC “Union of Minorities. Educational tools for the European Cultural Mosaic ”, a product with characteristics techniques (its accessibility to a broad audience of learners) and content (theoretical and practical aspects on the topics of multiculturalism and the construction of inclusive educational pathways), stands as an instrument of education and training shared with an intersectoral approach, which combines methodologies, tools and knowledge typical of education formal and non-formal education, coming from the public and private sector, and that, addressing the topic of multiculturalism in the broad sense (not only with reference to its most evident aspects linked to belonging to an ethnic group or practicing a different language), offers a space for deepening professional and personal skills deemed necessary to understand and operate in European and national social contexts for which it becomes fundamental possess an intercultural approach based on recognition and respect for differences. The MOOC was the result of a path that saw the synergistic collaboration between the worlds of formal and non-formal education formal, private and public and which was built throughout the project life cycle through specific contributions of the work group and the study visits that took place during the first year, during which they were visit various realities and it has been possible to observe, learn and evaluate different experiences and ways of working. The Observation process established during the study visits allowed the collection of data used to identify the topics found among the most important in the various areas and finalize the modular structure of the course following one pedagogical logic identified by the work group. It is for this reason that the MOOC includes chapters that they offer important theoretical ideas to better understand and reflect on topics such as multiculturalism, globalization, colonialism, the concept of minority, stereotypes and processes of stigmatization, whose mastery is fundamental importance not only when working with young people but in all those contexts in which different cultures meet and various differences, to create a more inclusive society, and at the same time functional. This theoretical basis represents the foundations on which a pedagogical path was then built starting from the necessary personal skills to learners to then be able to decline them in their respective professional fields, we continue towards the learning of methodologies for the management of groups, specific approaches and methods for working with minorities (applicable to different target groups, and replicable in different contexts) to provide insights on the importance of implementing systematic and structured actions by working on the web, and on the importance of evaluation as a tool to reflect on one's own activities / initiatives and then arrange oneself to learn to increase the quality of their interventions in order to achieve more effective and responsive results real needs of the target with whom you work. Through this project and the production of the online course, and its dissemination to an audience of users that goes beyond the the world of youth and NGOs, therefore, we wanted to contribute in a concrete way to provide an additional tool for improve the skills and individual knowledge of professionals engaged in work with cultural minorities generically intended to improve the quality of the services they offer to the beneficiaries, but also to spread interest and attention to the theme of intercultural education and recognition of the other as a source of mutual enrichment and basis for building solidary relationships within non-monolithic societies and communities characterized by an extreme variety of linguistic, cultural and behavioral codes.