The ART OF INCLUSION project will bring together institutions from different European regions who are working with refugees and migrants in their pedagogical and/or artistic work with different means, and are interested to develop and exchange about artistic offerings (theatre, photo, film, literature, dance, painting, music etc.) complimentary to regular education and training activities (i.e. language training courses). The aim is to improve the active inclusion of refugees and migrants by providing artistic meet and exchange opportunities with the entire local community on eye level, thus supporting the take-up of the language and culture of the host society and vice versa. The project is addressing adult educators, migrants and refugees, and artists from different areas as well as the respective local societies. The effective provision of basic skills for refugees and migrants to overcome linguistic, vocational and social barriers is a key issue. This has lead to a broad supply of language, vocational training and integration courses, mainly offered in adult learning institutions, aiming at providing i.e. basic language, societal and labour market skills. During formal training activities, there is hardly time to express oneself and discuss with each other. Nevertheless, opportunities to actively use the newly acquired language skills are essential for the learning success and thus for the successful integration into the host society. One local artistic workshop activity per transnational partner will be prepared prior to, and realized during the partner meetings, addressing partner organizations’ representatives as well as local community including refugees and migrants. Documentations of the events (written, filmed, or with other appropriate media according to the respective workshop activity, including interviews, prototypes or similar material) will be made commonly by the project partners. The documentations are going to be presented on the project website and disseminated through different channels, particularly through means of social media. The documentations shall give examples on how arts can contribute to motivation and take-up of language, how the local society can be involved into an inclusive approach for cultural and social exchange, and how such events can be planned and realized. The project website will present the documentations from the artistic activities during the transnational meetings, but as well other examples from activities aiming at including refugees and migrants by fostering dialogue with the means of arts. A special attention will be given to the use of social media as a means to disseminating the project outcomes and to promote the project objectives, but as well as a means to built local networks of artists, educators, refugees and migrants and other members of the local society. The partner organisations from Germany, Austria, Macedonia, Bulgaria and France combine expertise and experience in both educational and cultural work with different target groups.
The art of inclusion project brought together five institutions from different European regions who are working with refugees and migrants in their pedagogical and/or artistic work with different means, in order to develop and exchange about artistic offerings (theatre, photo, film, literature, dance, painting, music etc.) complimentary to regular education and training activities (i.e. language training courses). The aim was to improve the active inclusion of refugees and migrants by providing artistic meet and exchange opportunities with the entire local community on eye level, thus supporting the take-up of the language and culture of the host society and vice versa. The project was addressing adult educators, migrants and refugees, and artists from different areas as well as the respective local societies. During the project, each transnational partner developed one artistic workshop activity which was prepared prior to, and realized during the partner meetings, addressing partner organizations’ representatives as well as local community including refugees and migrants. Documentations of the local events with up to 50 participants each were made commonly by the project partners. The documentations are presented on the project website and have been disseminated through different channels, particularly through means of social media. The participants in the project (mainly educators in adult education and artists working in education context) gained a better knowledge on opportunities to socially include migrants and refugees through combining adult learning with artistic activities, and being enabled to apply to this knowledge at medium and long term. Concerning the participating organisations, a strong and beneficial impact can be considered, most of them relating to an enhanced quality of work and new perspectives in the education work with vulnerable groups. The impact on target groups, namely refugees and migrants, was significant particularly for the participants in the local workshops. The entire project was thoroughly evaluated by master class students from the Brandenburg University of Technology, and the evaluation report was published on EPALE. The second half of the project lifetime was strongly affected by the pandemic, making it impossible to prepare and meet in person for the final transnational meeting and workshop. Above that, local activities of the project partners had to be reduced due to the respective regulations as regards safety and hygiene, mobility and teaching/training opportunities, meaning that working with the target group of refugees and migrants at eye level was partly impossible. Nevertheless, since all previous workshops could be implemented, the documented outcomes provide practice examples on how arts can contribute to motivation and take-up of language, how the local society can be involved into an inclusive approach for cultural and social exchange, and how such events can be planned and realized.