The main aim of the project „youthfolklore.com” is to empower organisations working with young people in the creative sector in sustaining in challenging times while using these times for increasing the quality of activities offered for youth by equipping them with adequate, innovative tools and providing training for them. We would like to reach the aim following the objectives below: 1. To create sustainable cooperation between various organisations from the fields of folklore education, intercultural learning, non-formal education and creativity, which will be growing into a network of such organisations. 2. To offer the space for sharing good practices related to the work of the creative sector in challenging times (i.e. Covid-19 pandemic) when regular working methods are excluded. 3. To develop tools for strengthening competences of youth workers, instructors, educators working in the creative sector in the field of conflict resolution, intercultural learning, project management 4. To promote usage of NFE among folklore groups in order to use the full potential of their impact on young people 5. To strengthen the development of soft skills such as: creativity, communication, collaboration; their sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, intercultural learning among young people engaged in folklore groups 6. To stimulate European awareness and empower youth to be successful innovators in their local environment using their creative approach, passion for expressing their own culture and open-mindness for other cultures. The main result of the project will be Youthfolklore.com – website which creates not only an online space for learning, inspiration and networking but also encourages for live initiatives whenever it is possible. The project and its main outcome–online platform youthfolklore.com serves both: young people and professionals working with them associated in various organisations such as folklore bands and ensembles, dance groups, cultural organisations, people simply passionate about world folklore. It will be full of inspirational stories, tips and guidelines, workshop scenarios and resources of non-formal activities. In order to achieve the aim and objectives and to create the Intelectual Output, we planned the following activities in the project: - 3 Transnational Project Meetings in order to manage the project - Training course on creating audiovisual materials, promoting and disseminating of results for 20 participants coming from 5 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Hungary) - Training course on the usage of non-formal education methods (NFE) among folklore groups for 20 participants coming from 5 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Hungary) - Blended Mobility of Young People “Let’s folk!” for 30 participants coming from 5 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Hungary) All of the activities in the project will be inspired in the principles of NFE (participant-centred approach, flexibility of the training program, group as a mutual learning resource, trainers as facilitators of the learning process, holistic approach) and experiential learning. Our project proposal strongly links with Erasmus + Strategic Partnership in response to COVID-19 situation: it helps young generations and professionals working in the cultural sector of folklore to acquire skills and competences, including digital competences, boost quality, innovation and recognition of youth work (…). Our project can potentially have a contribution to job creations inspiring youth by success stories of folklore-inspired businesses and initiatives published on our website. It promotes a sense of entrepreneurship and initiative by encouraging youth groups for applying for grants and funds by themselves. Last but not least, thanks to the website created and translated into several languages, which will serve as a networking platform, but also the source of knowledge, it strongly fosters participatory and intercultural dialogue approaches between organisations representing non-formal education sector and organisations in the cultural sectors (such as folklore ensembles and bands, but not only). It was important for us to carry out this project in international partnership in order to facilitate European awareness, spot common challenges, compare solutions and insights and share as various good practices as possible.
The main aim of the project youthfolklore.com was to empower organisations working with young people in the creative sector to sustain in challenging times while using these times to increase the quality of activities offered to youth by equipping them with adequate, innovative tools and providing training for them. We wanted to create sustainable cooperation between various organisations from the fields of folklore education, intercultural learning, non-formal education and creativity, which grew into a network of such organisations. We created a space for sharing good practices related to the work of the creative sector in challenging times. We developed tools for strengthening competences of youth workers, instructors, educators working in the creative sector in conflict resolution, intercultural learning, and project management. We promoted the usage of NFE among folklore groups to use the full potential of their impact on young people. We strengthen the development of soft skills such as: creativity, communication, collaboration, their sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, and intercultural learning among young people engaged in folklore groups. Last but not least, we stimulated European awareness and empowered our youth.
The project has been designed as an answer to the question of how to facilitate the full educational potential of folklore youth groups. Such a question was especially on the map in the past months when the whole cultural sector has been frozen for a while and then has been trying using own resources to handle such an unordinary situation as a COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, some groups and organisations managed it better, some worse, and some discovered innovative tools and activities and learnt how to use them (zoom meetings for dance and singing, online streaming of concerts and online festivals). Some have been left with no support or solution to sustain this period. But even the ones, which succeeded in continuing their activities, were still focused on artistic expression or the development of physical abilities, maintaining them. Our consortium saw such groups as much more than that, and the time of suspended offline meetings, paradoxically, was a perfect space for developing other skills among professionals working with youth and young people, such as conflict management, intercultural learning, communication and collaboration. It was also a time to rethink how we want to work with youth in folklore ensembles.