The "Touch the Culture" project reflects on the current situation caused by Covid-19, but also on the long-term state of declining interest in some areas of the cultural and artistic environment. Its goal is to create intellectual outputs for the presentation and development of cultural and artistic activities with the participation of experts from the fields of culture, art, non-formal education, youth work and IT. Partners and experts from Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland will be involved in the project. During the implementation of the project, will be created two intellectual outputs and several educational and multiplication events will be organized. Created intellectual outputs: 1. Interactive web application - entertainment and educational application for the domain of culture and art localized into several languages. The application will consist of two parts, the visitor tool and the curatorial tool. The visitor part of the application will be implemented as a serious game in which visitors will be able to experience informal educational activities in the form of mini-games. The curatorial part serves the creators of the cultural event / pedagogue to create new non-formal educational activities in the online environment, which will then serve as a motivational and educational element for the event. This output will also include a web portal about the project and project topics. 2. Methodical handbook - author's handbook summarizing possible approaches to complementary activities of cultural and artistic institutions implemented in the form of non-formal education, with the possibility of implementation in the environment of formal and non-formal education. The manual will be the output of the activities of the expert group for various areas of culture, while we will focus primarily on history, fine arts, theater, music and literature, film, etc.). Part of the activities in the manual will also point to the possibilities of using an interactive application. A two-phase international educational event for 21 participants from the cultural and artistic environment, youth workers as well as teachers from Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic who works in the field will be implemented to disseminate the results, verify the results in practice and collect suggestions. Subsequently, multiplication events - workshops will be implemented in all participating countries (at least 7 events in each participating country). At these events, approaches and tools that represent the intellectual outputs of the project will be multiplied and used. At the end of the project, two final conferences with international participation will be held: one in Slovakia and one in the Czech Republic for about 60 participants in each country. The conferences will focus on presenting the outputs and results of the project, informing about the functions of the interactive application, establishing partnerships and cooperation between participants from different sectors. The proposed project concept is to ensure the creation of quality outputs, verified directly in practice, ready for their use and implementation and dissemination even after the end of the project.
By implementing the project, we wanted to achieve the fulfilment of the 4 set objectives (raising awareness of culture and art, integrating elements of non-formal education, creating tools and implementing new approaches and networking), which will make the cultural and artistic environment, institutions and activities more visible and attractive for young people. The project aimed to connect people and their knowledge and experience in the field of culture, arts, formal and non-formal education and to develop their existing activities and activities in the field of culture, arts and youth work with new approaches also using ICT tools. In collaboration with professionals and experts in the field of culture and non-formal education, we aimed to create accessible intellectual outputs to be used for support, new creative approaches and easy application in cultural and artistic environments in the organization and implementation of various events, activities and activities, especially for children and young people. The availability and possibilities of using new technologies will contribute to the popularisation of cultural and artistic institutions and the formation of positive attitudes of young people towards art and culture.
By implementing the Touching Culture project, we responded to a call that focused on culture, arts and heritage preservation. The project was a reflection of the current situation, which was marked by the limitations and stagnation of interest in culture and art related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was through this that the vulnerabilities of the culture and art sector became even more apparent. We have responded to the problem of the phenomenon of declining interest among young people in culture and the arts. activities and events. At the same time, we have addressed the need to raise awareness of the status and importance of art and culture in society, often caused by the lack of dedicated space in formal education for children and young people. Through non-formal. education of representatives of cultural and artistic institutions, youth workers and teachers, we have developed their skills, competences and potential to create space for education, awareness raising and opportunities for young people's realisation in cultural and artistic environments and activities.