Since its foundation in 1987, the Bludenz Region History Association has been committed to researching and communicating the history of the town and Dregion of Bludenz. Over the past decades, many projects have been developed and implemented on a regional basis. These activities were now to be raised to an international level in the project. The main aim was to raise the Stadtlabor Bludenz, a project to collect and communicate local knowledge, to an international level. To this end, a partnership was developed with the TORO Group organization in Vilnius. The cooperation between a small Austrian town and a European capital had a particularly positive effect on the dynamics of the project. Working together, we wanted to motivate young adult learners to approach their living environment using suitable methods. Embedded in broad regional networks, different approaches and formats were to be developed in order to develop creative ideas for communicating established structures. At the same time, we wanted the project to raise awareness of lifelong learning and the opportunities offered by the Erasmus+ program in this regard.
The project was about communicating city histories. Two partners developed innovative methods to collect local knowledge. Citizen science methods were used for this. The target group consisted of young adult learners. They were encouraged to engage with the history of their cities (Bludenz in Austria and Vilnius in Lithuania). In a globalized world, engaging with one's own living environment can contribute to an understanding of established structures and the development of identity. We wanted to come closer to this goal in the project. The population of our cities was able to engage intensively with the historical development in numerous programs and events. We promoted intergenerational dialog by encouraging young adults to engage intensively with the stories of older people. In this respect, we wanted to create a contemporary learning environment and highlight the importance of museums and other educational institutions for imparting local knowledge. Thanks to the broad networking of our institutions in Bludenz and Vilnius, the project was able to be set up in a diverse network.