"TheArThee" (TAT) will explore the inclusive potential of theatre and performing arts as a methodology to create opportunity, learn new skills, enhance communication and dispel prejudice against young people facing social exclusion. This will be achieved by sharing of best practise and skills exchange from cross sector organisations working in the field of youth empowerment and alternative learning. The project will explore how theatre can be used as a tool to bring elements of society together to empower young people regardless of class, race, gender and perceived disabilities and abilities. The project complements the focus on youth exclusion with additional attention to physical and cognitive impairment. TAT deploys an intervention on the skills-related and emotional dimension of excluded young people's plight through exploring the educational, integrational and creative dimension of devised theatre. Devised theatre is conceived as an original approach to the theatrical production entailing a peer-to-peer process of co-operation between a group of co-creators in the achievement of a final artistic product. The non-hierarchical nature of the co-creation process is designed to give each individual voice a determining role over the final outcome of the process, thereby ensuring the full ownership of the creative process by each individual co-creator. The European Disability Strategy (2010) sets the overall objective of empowering people with disability with a view to enabling their full participation in society, also by positive action aimed at eliminating all kinds of discrimination. With a record number of NEETs following the financial and economic crisis, there have been concerns among policymakers that a whole generation of young people in the EU could remain out of the labour market for years to come. The latest data available for 2017 shows that NEET rates in the EU-28 were 15.5 % for people aged 20–24, 17.7 % for those aged 25–29, and 18.1 % for those aged 30–34; In 2017, the at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rate for young people aged 16-29 years was 27.7 % in the EU-28, corresponding to about 21.8 million young people; In 2017, an average of 10.6 % of young people (aged 18-24) in the EU-28 were early leavers from education and training (Eurostat 2017). Physically and cognitively impaired young people face the highest challenges within the marginalized element of the youth population. At the European level, only 48,7% of persons with disabilities are employed compared with 72,5% of the non-disabled. For the 15-34 age-group of the disabled population, the EU unemployment rate is 30,7%, 15 percentage points higher than for the corresponding age bracket in the non-disabled population. At the European level, 41.2% of persons aged 30-34 have completed a tertiary or equivalent education against a 29,7% percentage among the corresponding age-band of the disabled population. Objectives/Goals • Reduce social exclusion of disadvantaged youth by creating and piloting a format for educational offer targeted at youth operators and organizations for the development of their capacities in employing devised theatre, co-creation and peer-interaction; • Contribute to the guidance and methodological support to operators in the implementation of co-creation programmes in devised theatre targeted at excluded youths by published materials; • Promote the innovative educational format of devised theatre, co-creation and peer-interaction Target group TAT is addressed to an audience of direct targets and indirect targets • Disadvantaged young people aged 18-25 coming from marginalized urban and rural communities. • Educators/trainers in the youth field providing or interested in developing their understanding of social inclusion • Entities with outreach to the targeted youth categories (NGOs, cultural businesses and associations, Arts centres/groups, Organizations/public agencies providing services for excluded young people). TheArThee will organize a Training Course for youth workers/Trainers from partner organizations aged 21+ interested in developing competences and professional capacities to engage young people facing exclusion (including youngsters with physical/slight cognitive disability) in educational programmes of empowerment through co-creation and interaction with mainstream youth peers based on Devised Theater. TAT will deliver on the following results: 1- Identification of needs and barriers faced by excluded youths in devised theatre and mapping of existing good practices through a transnational research. 2- Format targeted at youth operators and organizations for the development of their capacities in employing devised theatre as the cornerstone of a customized educational offer for the empowerment of excluded youths through co-creation and peerinteraction with mainstream youth in devised theatre. 3- Published materials providing guidance and methodological support to operators.
Development and sharing of best practise amongst cross sectorial youth based organisations. Many organisations can find themselves working on this type of project in a bubble and it's important that a wide range of experiences and practises could be opened and shared amongst the partners and further. Better understanding of the difficulties beneficiaries experience in accessing creative devising programs that resonate with them. Through the project surveys and desk research a greater understanding of partner countries current offer was undertaken which helped focus the aims of creating tools to encourage greater opportunity and awareness of the strength of devising theatre programs in accessing the lived experience of marginalised youth. Creation of training modules that could be transferrable to other organisations. This output has been achieved via the two intellectual outputs. By creating these toolkits other organisations within the field of YOUth work but not necessarily skilled in theatre can access the creative possibility to add to their own program of interventions for vulnerable young people.
Theatre has long been seen as a methodology for building inclusion and worth within communities. Many young people at some point feel excluded from their community and this approach is a tool that can support and develop skills within these young people. There is a strong sense, throughout Europe of the importance of accessibility into the arts to support social change. This project presented an opportunity to bring together diverse thinking and skill sets to develop a transferable program that organisations with less devising theatre and arts activities could access. TheArtTHee addressed the issues of social exclusion with young people through the tool of devised theatre. This process addresses may different skill sets; creative problem solving, soft skills, communication skills, team work and team building to name but a few. This empowers the young people, both excluded and mainstream to work together to find solutions. On an organisational level the needs addressed are developed competencies in delivering devising projects. For the end beneficiary development of strong local programs that are accessible was a desired outcome. The partners have strong programs and experience in promoting Youth work and innovative Youth projects