Role for a Change is a 2-years project that aims to explore roleplaying and LARP (Live Action Role Playing) as a methodological framework in which the organisations can propose educational activities to promote the acquisition of personal, social and professional competences among diverse target groups. The project idea was initiated with the aim of supporting all youngsters and especially of those with fewer opportunities during the pandemic that struck globally in spring 2020. While lockdowns were issued across the globe, organisations had to find alternative approaches to move their educational offers online, while keeping supporting the psychological and physical wellbeing of the youths. Roleplaying provided the youngsters with the opportunity of experiencing community through online games, while fighting isolation and social distancing. On one side, through a strategic and structured approach, the project will examine the uses that role-playing allows in educational contexts. Role-playing and LARP can be seen as containers of individual and community experiences for the development of competences, practical skills, critical thinking, empathy and entrepreneurship; tools to create group relationships, to communicate, facilitating creativity and therefore growth. In light of the present global instability, the partnership will also delve into the online dimension of role-playing and its potential as both eLearning and blended learning tool. On another side, the partnership aims to increase organisations’ capacity and develop personnel’s competences in order to use such methodologies and widen its educational offer. As a multidisciplinary tool, Edu-LARP allows organisations and youth workers to structure and implement inclusive and content-consistent educational paths, both online and in person, of various scales. These offers vary from theatre and debating workshops, cooking and costume sewing classes among others and can be adapted to youngsters’ existing needs. To maximize the potential benefits offered, the tool needs to be understood and competences and organisational structures need to be explored and developed. In the project 4 youth work organisations, one social enterprise and one local public body are working together in one partnership and will organise a series of activities. These activities will generate 100 mobilities, involving project managers, youth workers, trainers, local stakeholders and young people with different backgrounds. Aside of the 6 transnational meetings, the project foresees a training/learning activity and 6 multiplier events. The transnational meetings will focus on processes related to the project management and to the production of the Intellectual Outputs. The training course will have the aim to provide youth workers and trainers of the network with the competences of using roleplaying and LARP with educational purposes. Furthermore, with the help of the multiplier events, the intellectual outputs and the results of the Strategic Partnership will be spread to more organisations and stakeholders. The above mentioned Intellectual Outputs are: - A Manual on how to use roleplaying and LARP in educational context; - A training curriculum for youth workers for residential and blended learning roleplaying activities; - A series of webinars for youth workers for digital and blended learning roleplaying activities; - An online platform, which collects all the outcomes of the project. Thank to all the above mentioned measures, Role for a Change plans to achieve the following results: - To increase the capacity building as well as organisational strategies and approaches; - To support the acquisition of transversal professional competences among the personnel of the organisations; - To develop innovative online and blended activities of role-playing; - To make projects on roleplaying accessible and attractive for diverse target groups. - To foster engagement of youngsters and to empower them in activating themselves as experts and peer educators. ROLE aims to have the following impacts on stakeholders in the field of youth work and education: to bring formal and non-formal education closer and promote international activities also among the schools, raising awareness of the impact that European mobility and education can have, especially for the target groups. As a result of this, the future network will engage in a discussion about future plans and cooperation.
The objectives of the project were: - To explore role-playing and LARP as educational tools (Edu-LARP) in the context of local and international youth work. - To examine the uses that role-playing allows in educational contexts, as containers of individual and community experiences for the development of competences, - practical skills, critical thinking, empathy, and entrepreneurship. - To create a strategic and structured approach to role-playing and LARP as both eLearning and blended learning tools, in light of the present global instability. - To increase organizations’ capacity and develop personnel’s competences to use such methodologies and widen their educational offer. - To develop inclusive and content-consistent educational paths of various scales that can be adapted to youngsters’ existing needs. - To stimulate the professional discourse on EDU-LARP at the European level and learn from concepts and experiences from the participating countries and organizations. - To identify and further develop concepts, tools, and methods of non-formal education related to role-playing, which can be implemented in different regions and with heterogeneous target groups, by observing and evaluating international best practices.
The pandemic left young people in a vulnerable state. As a consequence, organizations had to rethink their approaches to provide a support system to young people and fight isolation and social distancing. In this sense, the Roleplaying and LARP (Live Action Role Playing) workshop, which META was providing before the pandemic, represented a successful experiment and inspiration for this KA2. The workshop moved online, allowing young people to maintain an element of community in their lives and to keep developing their competences. The following needs were identified: - To develop a consistent educational framework that could be adaptable to in-person and virtual settings while continuing learning processes emerged, in this case roleplaying and educational LARP (EDU-LARP); - to stimulate the professional discourse on EDU-LARP at the European level and learn from concepts and experiences from the participating countries and organizations; - Capacity building for organizations and competence development for youth workers for creating virtual and residential pedagogical concepts.