The Art is Us project aims to use the transformative force of culture for community regeneration to respond to the severe impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had both on artists and the cultural sector and on social inclusion and cohesion. It equips artists, community leaders and art educators with key skills and competences for a sustainable creative career and provides them with the opportunity to be successful innovators in their communities. It enhances social inclusion by fostering innovative, arts-based participatory and intercultural dialogue approaches. The project effectively uses the strong experience of all its consortium members in socially engaged arts teaching and content development, e-learning and multimedia, community arts initiatives and career guidance and skills development to design and develop a high-quality adults education course on Innovative Community Development. There is no such existent course in adult learning or other educational organizations in the EU, although the transformative potential of culture has been recognised at EU level and is a priority of the New European Agenda for Culture and the Work Plan for Culture 2019-2022. The learning material that will be developed will offer upskilling to artists, art educators and community leaders in key skills and competencies identified by both project partners needs analysis and prior experience in the field and by the literature. The need for the promotion of digital, entrepreneurial, traditional and specialised skills is also highlighted by the New European Agenda for Culture (economic dimension). The material will represent the learners’ journey from understanding the community →partnership building →budgeting/ fundraising →sustainable art career. 25 learners will be selected in SI, DE, GR and IT (100 in total), based on their portoflios and vision for innovatory change in their communities. The design of the Art is Us learning programme supports a state-of-the-art educational approach that focuses on the needs of the learners. Four microlearning courses will be developed, making the transfer of learning more efficient and more engaging for the learners. Both millennials and adult learners from disadvantaged backgrounds can follow better a training that is customized to their needs, on-demand and informal. In addition, microlearning development can be aesthetically pleasing which is an important bonus for the artistic flair of the target groups. The microlearning programme will be constantly kept updated, encouraging learners’ cocreation and participation in content development. It will be available through the project platform and you tube channel as an open educational material, free for use, reuse, adaptation and sharing by both educators, and (self-) learners in English, Slovenian, Italian, German, Greek, Romanian, Arabic and Farsi. This is expected to increase its impact and exploitation potential, since by design, it will be possible both to be implemented by itself effectively and to be part of a larger eLearning offering, as a micro companion to traditional forms of training. The programme supports blended learning, comprising also practical, on-the-job components, namely, mentorship, peer-learning and workshops. It gives the possibility to learners to materialize their own community development vision, to talk about the Art is Us experience and their work and contribute to its delivery. It also provides the opportunity to the most talented, engaged learners to benefit from a learning visit/ residency to another EU country. The project outputs of are expected to greatly affect the project learners’, partners, involved communities and policymakers. A community-oriented, grassroots approach will be followed in economically depressed areas, encouraging local community members to come together to express concerns or issues through artistic practice that can act as a catalyst to trigger events or changes within a community or at a national or international level. IO1 will provide learners with capacity-building material and guidance on how the learners' community innovation project can be implemented. IO2 will foster cooperation, sharing and exchange for the optimal design and delivery of projects. IO3 implements the projects through Open Innovation Activities that create innovatory change in the communities. The specific format of the innovation activities will depend upon the learners’ vision and ideas. Diversity and vulnerable groups’ / intergenerational participation will be particularly encouraged and fostered. At least 60 ideas (15 per country) are expected to be successfully delivered and make a change in the community.
Our goal was to equip artists, community leaders, and art educators with key skills and competencies for a sustainable creative career, and to support them to become successful innovators in their communities. We worked towards community regeneration in response to the severe impact of the COVID-19 and towards promoting social inclusion through innovative, arts-based participatory and intercultural dialogue approaches. We conducted a needs analysis based on our prior experience and interviews with focus groups. Our project developed a web-based course to focus on the needs of the learners and involve them in creative activities that address local community needs, focusing on areas that accommodate high levels of cultural heterogeneity and social inequality. Project fosters equality and social inclusion through participatory, co-design activities of arts-based innovative solutions that benefit vulnerable members of the targeted communities of diverse backgrounds. The partnership allowed us to collaboratively develop project’s outputs and to benefit from partner's networks and outreach to have a strong impact at EU level, and create innovative content and synergies between the partner organizations and their associated partners.
We applied to address the pandemic's impact on the cultural sector and social cohesion by focusing on "Skills development and inclusion through creativity and the arts," aimed to mitigate this impact. We targeted vulnerable communities, mobilizing creatives, community leader and art educators to foster innovative, participatory, and intercultural dialogue approaches. Recognizing the need for digital education readiness, we leveraged our e-learning and multimedia expertise to create quality content for vulnerable adult learners, providing translations in 8 languages in total, 6 EU languages, Ukrainian, and Arabic. Our project prioritized "Adult Education" and "Social Inclusion," focusing on extending high-quality learning opportunities to underserved adult learners while promoting social inclusion and cohesion. Our online MOOC translated to 8 languages led to the implementation of 60 innovative projects in Greece, Slovenia, Germany, and Italy. These projects, developed by learners, addressed the needs of vulnerable participants. Driven by our commitment to education, creativity, and social inclusion, we're proud of our achievements and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to our communities' recovery and resilience.