Education, culture and youth policies play a central role in building a cohesive, competitive and supportive Europe, as can be seen in the Communication from the European Commission on the theme "Building a stronger Europe: the role of policies for youth, education and culture "(2018), which incorporates the conclusions of the Gothenburg social network and the European Council at the end of 2017, it is necessary and indeed urgent to put young people in a position to actively participate in civil life and politics, exploiting the potential of culture, learning, mobility, with the aim of giving them power and capacity to contribute to well-being, social and economic growth, and the diffusion of European values of cohesion, inclusion and solidarity. PHOTOFX wants to contribute to the achievement of these strategic objectives through the establishment of a consortium of organizations that, by mutual agreement, seek to create a suitable environment for civic participation and active citizenship of young people through the use of photography and communication. PHOTOFX will emphasize participatory photography that consists of a practical use especially in the field of community development, public health and education, which combines photography with social action, and seeks to investigate through how individuals think about social issues. Beneficiaries: • Young Europeans from 13 to 30 years old (target group) • People with disabilities (indirect beneficiaries) • Indirect beneficiaries: youth, students, youth workers, social workers, representatives of training and education centers, NGOs, associations, experts, policy makers and other key stakeholders. General objective: This proposal aims to provide young participants with the tools to give voice to their expressiveness, vision and personal interpretation of the world, with the purpose of social inclusion and awareness, especially about the conditions of discrimination suffered by people due to their physical and / or mental disability, promoting co-creation processes in community interventions that use art for social transformation, placing participatory photography as an artistic practice that favors awareness on social issues, within this framework participants are asked to “represent their context, their community, their environment, from their point of view, taking pics, talking about them, developing narratives. Specific objectives: The project contributes to: • fostering, through participatory photography, the creativity of the participants to express through photos their vision of social inclusion; • empowerment of young people through digital communication, to make them able to transmit their image of the problems, challenges, opportunities, aspirations related to their environment, community and reality where they carry out their daily lives; • promotion of active citizenship, dialogue, mutual respect and awareness of young people on issues of social relevance, with a focus on social inclusion of people with disabilities, through photography; • transfer and dissemination of innovative practices at European level on issues related to social inclusion, intercultural dialogue and active citizenship of young people; • promotion of OER informal and non-formal education methodologies, tools and materials; • promotion of active European citizenship among young people through their awareness of social inclusion, with the perspective of breaking social barriers between "young people" and "people with disabilities", as defined, among other things, by the European Strategy for Disability 2014-2020. These objectives will be achieved through: • Participatory photography manual; • Toolkit for awareness campaigns on social networks. Duration: 18 months Consortium: Q1: (ES) Association Ser Jóven P2: (IT) Social Cooperative La Speranza Q3: (NL) DFIW2W Q4: (BG) VIZIONER Q5: (HU) Jó Palócok Egyesülete. Impacts at local, regional, national and EU level: - Possibility of contributing to the improvement of services for youth and disabled people by local, regional and national public and private organizations through innovative methodologies that promote youth participation and social inclusion; - The long-term expected impact of the project, at the level of civil society and European policy makers, is to ensure that organizations working with young people and with people from disadvantaged groups (in particular people with disabilities) are recognized as educational innovator centers, capable of promoting social inclusion.
The central objective of PHOTOFX has been to provide the participating youth with the tools to be able to give voice to their expressiveness, vision and personal interpretation of the world, with a purpose of social inclusion and awareness-raising, the intention of this objective has been at all times to form processes of collective creation in community interventions that use art for social transformation, positioning photography as an artistic practice that favours a social gaze and a greater knowledge of their context, their community, their environment. Fighting exclusion is essential for a united, cohesive and strong Europe in the face of increasing external threats. Connecting European youth through techniques and themes that appeal to them, being able to instil in them a sensitivity to social issues and generate a desire to spread this impact in their community. Today's participants can be tomorrow's artists, advocates of culture and social photography so that all realities are known and our voices are multiplied to fight injustice.
The Photo to Fight Xclusion (PHOTOFX) project emerged with the intention of empowering young people to actively participate in civil and political life by exploiting the potential of culture, namely photography as a tool to fight exclusion and to connect European youth. In this way, PHOTOFX has contributed to raising awareness of the social aspect of photography among European youth, allowing young people to learn about the enormous possibilities of a camera. PHOTOFX has emphasised participatory photography, which combines photography with social action, and seeks to investigate through a collective gaze how individuals sustain a range of social conditions. Likewise, working on topics such as photojournalism, PhotoVoice and creative dynamics within photography such as social photo marathons, landscape photography gymkhanas or the emulsion lift technique, more than 200 young people in four countries (Spain, Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands) have benefited from the contents of the creative labs, and we hope that they can apply all the knowledge in their daily lives.