The key objective of 'Where To?' is to enhance democratic participation in civic society for all persons, from a young age. It positions young people as able, engaged, curious, and creative. The project displays the European values of inclusion, sustainability, and social entrepreneurship in our community spaces for the shared benefit of everyone, in the long term. This is implemented through a carefully designed mentoring programme that aided young people in co-imaging and creating a communal storytelling artefact that is shared in public, enabling current and future young people to add to the stories and community that they inhabit. Our artefact creation process is in line with the EU's green deal as it shared the value of no person or place left behind. Ultimately, what we wanted to show through this project is that given the right support and resources young people become strong contributors to civic society because they feel that what they have to say matters. This requires intergenerational and intercultural approaches to community learning and support.
Through this EU funded (KA210-YOU) project called, ‘Where To? Stories of Migration and Belonging’, Maltese storytelling organisation Lignin Stories and the Italian Centro Italiano Storytelling (Italy) wanted to promote youth active citizenship by exploring how storytelling can help young people form a stronger sense of belonging in societies that they adopt as their own. Run in collaboration with refugee organisation Spark15 (Malta) and the local elementary school in Portico (Italy), the project brings together local and migrant youth in a mentoring programme that explores what home means when we are on the move and how shared community spaces play a part in bringing us together. Over the course of a year, we conducted research, ran discussion and training workshops, and co-created artefacts that helped to place young people of all cultures and backgrounds - locals, refugees, migrants, asylum seekers - at the forefront of social change through a community storytelling and space sharing.