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Final report

European Ideas Lab,

8th-11th June 2018, Ljubljana

Trainers: Alexandra Beweis and Henk Persyn

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Description of the activity

The partners in Aware and Active project, co-funded by Erasmus+ were :

Movit - Slovenia, IZ - Austria, AE - Finland, ANG - Italy, Archimedes - Estonia, NA - Macedonia

The project AAA („Aware and Active”) is a three-year action supported by the European Commission

in the context of the Erasmus+ Programme: Initiatives for policy innovation – Social Inclusion through

education, training and youth. It started on December 1st 2016 and will end on December 31st 2019.

The main objectives of the project are preventing violent radicalization and promoting democratic

values, fundamental rights, intercultural understanding and active citizenship of young people; and

enhance critical thinking and media literacy among young people.

General description with aims and

objectives of the activity.

With the European Ideas Lab we want

to contribute to a Europe where more

young people are thinking critically,

embracing diversity as part of their

European identity, acting and

participating to enhance and promote

diversity and inclusion in Europe

starting from their local communities,

while being well aware of the

opportunities of Erasmus+ as a tool to

achieve all that.

.The participants were young people participating in Idea Labs of Aware and Active project

implemented on the local level in 6

participating countries (Slovenia, Macedonia,

Italy, Austria, Estonia, Finland). A special aim of

the whole project and thus also of this

European Idea Lab is to involve a diverse group

of young people also those with a refugee,

asylum seeker or migration background - this

event (as the national labs before) achieved this

aim very well since the groups were very

diverse and aware of that being special.

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The implemented programme :

FRIDAY, 8.6.2018

Until 17:00 Arrival of Participants

18:00 – 19:30 Welcome Activities

19:30 Dinner @Hotel Slon

20:00 Treasure Hunt in Ljubljana

SATURDAY, 9.6.2018

09:30 – 09:45 Official Welcome / Who we are & what the project (Aware and Active) is about

09:45 – 11:30 Getting to know each other and sharing AAA activities and experiences in national

groups (incl. floating coffee break from 10:30 – 11.30)

11:30 – 13:00 Presentation Carousel – sharing activities and experiences across countries

13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break

14:30 – 15:30 Messages from the national labs – what do we have in common?

15:30 – 16:30 My Story

16:30 – 17:00 Coffee Break

17:00 – 18:15 Young People: The story of us

18:15 – 18:30 „Stories of us“ are told

20:00 : Dinner @ “Poligon”

SUNDAY, 10.6.2018

09:30 – 10:30 What is campaigning

10:30 – 13:00 Visions & Objective / Our European Story, Allies, Messages,... / (Coffee break in

between)

13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break

14:30 – 16:00 Our European Strategy

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break

16:30 – 18:30 Action Planning – what can we do on local/national level to support the European

Campaign

20:00 : Dinner and Party in the youth centre “Ulca”

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MONDAY, 11.6.2018

09:30 – 11:00 Preparing national stands on activities, plans,

11:00 – 12:00 Presenting the Campaign and our activities to partners

12:00 – 13:00 Evaluation and Feedback

13:00 Lunch and Goodbye

Description of individual programme segments Friday, 8.6.2018 Welcome activities Aim: - getting to know each other Activities: name games, map of Europe, line of first letter in the name in alphabetical order, birthday, and age

Treasure Hunt in Ljubljana Aim : getting to know each other and the surroundings.

- Small groups ( mixed three nationalities) created by color switching - Each group received a task and needed to full fill it within the agreed time. (Based on

“mission impossible” : involving different methods (interviews, art, performing etc) - getting in contact with locals and already spreading the message that the activity is happening in the weekend.

- Presentation and closure - Duration maximum 1,5h ( explanation and groups : 15 minutes), 45 minutes outside , 30

minutes presentation. Closure with technical info and program presentation

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Saturday, 9.6.2018

Official Welcome by the project stakeholders

Short Intro - what is Aware and Active?

Aim: to give the group a clear understanding of the overall context that they are working in and the

objectives of this event.

A process poster was created and presented to the group (it then stayed in the room for future

reference) and they were reminded of where we are in the process and where we want to get with

this Lab.

Aware and Active in… Sharing local activities in the national groups Aim: to share the experience of the participants and to be able to show what has been already achieved. It served also to make the participants more self-confident showing their successes.

People gathered in the six country circle and first discussed in the lab groups what they did and then presented to each other lab by lab - in their own language. After that they decided what were the highlights that they wished to present to the others and created a visual poster/stand etc. They were also given the national reports right on the spot, so they could see what national labs did that were not represented directly in the European Idea Lab and could also highlight those activities.

Presentations of the Results of National/Local Aware and Active Idea Labs and Activities The aim: of this first round was to share the different approaches and activities in the countries with the whole group, to get to know and to inspire each other. The groups were proud to show case their successes and ideas.

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The participants shared a diverse range of ideas and

activities they had already done or were planning to do ranging from intercultural football-tournaments, awareness raising activities cooking and sharing international food, occupying the market place of a town engaging in dialogue with the people on the street, youth-led activities on critical thinking, media criticism and cyber bullying to impressive photo exhibitions and accompanying activities to raise

the awareness in local communities of difficulties and realities refugees face. In 3 rounds 2 countries presented and the other participants moved from one presentation to the next - in a free carousel (20min). There was a lot of questions and appreciation from the young participants towards their peers. One aim of that activity was to get to know what had already happened on local level in the different countries, the other aim was to look for the Common Ground as participants perceived it and use this as one of the starting points for a common European Campaign of Aware and Active.

The common ground was found easily since all of the activities aimed at creating a positive narrative of living together in Europe, embracing diversity and respect for European Values. A list of all the results of the local Idea Labs can be found in the Annex.

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14:30 - 15:30 Messages from national labs Another result of the National/Local Idea Labs was messages for young people for a common European Campaign. Therefore the aim of the next activity was to get an overview of the messages that the young people had created in the national labs and to restructure them under topics/headings to find the European common ground. Each country was having a pin board where all the messages were displayed. First the country groups went in a gallery walk and read through everything and then five mixed groups got 1 - 2 boards to look at and create clusters and headings for those. Then the headings were shared and every group contributed the messages from their board for the common collection.

The collected results were used as one of the main elements in create the message(s) for the Aware and Active Movement Campaign - see Campaign Strategy by Adam Elsod.

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15:30 - 16:30 Story of self Aim: to create an understanding of storytelling as a strong tool for campaigning and to have stories of self and of us as a basis for the campaign. Adam started this session with a powerful story from his childhood and then explained some principles on how a good story is build. Participants then created their personal story in individual work - who am I and how did I get here? - then they went into groups o f3 - 4 people and shared their stories. In the end volunteers were invited to share their story in the plenary and get feedback from Adam, which two of them did. Young People: Storytelling continued Groups of 4 create “story of us” → share with one other group and together create a new story of us → then we around 6 - 8 stories Sunday, 10.6.2018 Input: What is campaigning ?

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Workshop style: Short input, group work Short input, group work Vision & Objectives: sharing the already agreed up vision and objectives from the prep-meeting. European Story Stakeholders: Brainstorming with the whole group of participants: Target: - General undecided youth including young migrants and refugees. - Civil society organizations active on different levels, - Center (right / left) politicians on local, national, and European levels. Audience: - Youth surrounding entities: youth clubs, youth councils, sport clubs, social centers, youth organizations, schools, - Youth surrounding persons: youth workers, youth representatives, trainers, teachers - Influencers: instagrammers, youtubers, snapchat, idols, celebrities, artists… etc. - Parents - Peers and friends Alliances: - Donors - Activists - Progressive teachers and parents - EVS volunteers - Progressive NGOs and entities: CoE, Poywe, YFJ, Obessu, Network for Refugee Voices, VYRE, ESN. - Crisis centers. - Survivors of hate crimes. - NAs. - Euro desks. - Progressive municipalities. - No Hate Speech Movement.

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Messages Strategizing - how do we do that on a European Level?

NAME of campaign Adam did explain the names and how they come about - Human Heroes Movement Europe Heroes Movement Speak out for Diversity The young people then expressed the wish to create their own alternatives and came up with three favourites. The favourites were chosen from a longer list by adding dots to their favourite.

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We informed them before that we will present those favourites to the partners, but that the final the partners meeting on Monday will have the last word on the name.

- “4unity movement” : 16 votes - “Europe 2 all movement” : 32 votes - “Human heroes movement”: 23 votes.

Action Planning - what will we do on national level? Adam provided a structure and the groups had time to explore what actions they were still planning (from ideas of their initial labs and from new inspiration from the European idea Lab) on local/national level to support the European Campaign.

To round the day up we asked them some questions on their commitment and involvement in the upcoming European Campaign in an active way of positioning themselves and moving around as a group. This lead to a powerful ending of the day with a lot of energy. Monday, 11.6.2018 The national groups started the day with preparing their presentations (floating coffee break starting at 10:30) - each country had a stand combining the activities planned or implemented on national level and new ideas/plans coming out of this event. The representatives of the National Agencies and some external guests were then the audience for this Aware and Active Fair and the young people got a first chance to tell their story and present their

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ideas. The ideas presented for supporting the campaign were: Austria: International:

● Instagram: 1 post per day #spreadit ● Videos/photos - facebook ● Website - Information (Donations?) ● Youth Exchange

National:

● Hock On - Austrian Tour ● Forum Theater and exibition ● to give the opportunity to be part of the project

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Estonia

● An event in Tartu - cultural diversity (in August) ● An event in Narva - cultural diversity (in September) ● Involvement of Russian speaking Estonians

Finland

● Social Media (facebook, instagram, hashtags, memes) ● Print materials (posters, newspapers, flyers) ● Association with other organisations in the city ● Pop-up stalls (promotional materials: kay chains, t-shirts, mugs, bags, badges, food) ● Promoting in an event/festival ● “Messages” in the form of photos/videos/souvenirs to the exchange students ● Expat communities: marketing the message to them ● SALTO Toolbox ● Galleries & Museums ● Art installations ● Websites ● Radio stations ● Flashmob

Italy Visibility Plan:

● Viral Promo Video ● Interactive Map with multimedia contents and data about local activities and the project ● Quiz about the project → prize: participation to the next AAA event

Details Video & Map:

● gather all materials from all events ● prepare the video and the interactive map with the help of a professionist ● spread the vidoe and the map with the help of participants, partners, NGOs, NAs

○ local level: during youth local events which include local stakeholders (put a stand with a computer) and local awareness activities

○ european level: Social Media

● collect the feedback, the answers to the quiz, contact who won the project prize

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Macedonia

● Social Media ● Exhibition ● Billboards ● Public Activities ● Digital Story Telling

Slovenia Slovenia as country had no final presentation since there was only 1 participant all the time present on the event. He joined the team from Finland and was very motivated to work on the campaign in Slovenia in the following months.

All the above mentioned ideas were also collected by campaigner Adam Elsod and were taken into consideration for the common approach for the AAA Movement that Adam presented to the partners of the AAA project in the beginning of July 2018 in the AAA Campaign Strategy.

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Evaluation with the group

Methods

A general description and argumentation of the work methods used: During the European Ideas Lab we were using youth work and non-formal methods - creating a safe space to learn and contribute, participatory methods where everybody had a chance to express themselves, working in small and bigger groups, taking care of language and other barriers, participants had a chance to co-create the programme and experience a lot of hands on planning of a campaign. More specific approach:

- icebreaking : on first evening there were some activities in order to create bridges among the participants. This went also on during further activities as it was big group with young and vulnerable participants who did not always speak so good English. For several of them it was the first time in an international activity, abroad. Ice-breaking and building trust was very important.

- presentations : as it was a European Ideas lab, based on activities on national level from before, with the idea to create inspiration for further steps, presentations were essential. In national groups they made their presentations towards the other nationalities. And also towards the organizers, stakeholders and representatives of the national agency’s.

- Input : As this event was the start of the European campaign it was important to give input on what is a campaign and how young people can be involved and take a leading role in it.

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- group work and sharing: participants had to work together to get their inspiration from each other and also to stimulate the creation of the next steps. This was done in national groups but also in international cooperation.

- informal moments : there might be discussion if this is a method but we can say in our opinion it was! As the dinners out were organized in a different setting with the specific aim to give space for informal but important contact among the participants we can confirm this was a method to. It helped in the creation of the mutual trust and participants were also sharing about their way of working.

Main conclusions of the activity

Description of the main conclusions of the activity.

1) Participants developed activities which will be implemented in participating countries to support European campaign.

2) Name of the campaign was decided by the project partners: Aware and Active Movement. This decision was communicated and explained to the young people

3) Motivated young people from 6 European countries with developed sense of belonging to the movement

4) There will simultaneous ‘get together’/ ‘follow-up’ events held in participating countries gathering all the participants from Ideas Labs to give a boost to Aware and Active campaign and to celebrate Human Rights day (10th December 2018)

Evaluation Summary of the evaluation by participants. General impressions of the participants were very good: they felt welcomed, they said the event was well organized, the atmosphere was good, that the trainers were clear, fun and approachable, that they learned new things and that they had the opportunity to learn from each other and share what they have already achieved. They especially mentioned that they enjoyed being in this diverse and open group. Participants also wrote that they are motivated to be part of the movement and to continue their work inside Aware and Active Movement plus they also hope that their work will have an impact.

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Short evaluation by trainers. Team of trainers cooperated very well before and during the event. As a trainer we also involved Adam Elsod in the process. We supported each other when need, held preparation and evaluation meetings. There were a lot of adjustments of the programme causing a bit of stress but we managed to work it out without great difficulties. It was sometimes a little challenging to hold such an activity within a project as dynamic and changing as Aware and Active since clarity is very important for the participation of young people, but all team members - incl. NA staff and project-management - managed to provide answers to arising questions and explain changes and adjustments. All of the trainers implementing the event were experienced which showed in the quality of work with young people and their evaluation.

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Follow-up proposals As mentioned above there will be national follow up events on 10th December 2018 (Human Rights Day). It seems important that the group will be supported and involved also in between now and those events e.g. through social media activities to keep the energy and motivation uo. We also anticipate a lot of work to support the campaign on all levels.

Annexes Annex 1: Ideas and Messages from the Idea Labs Annex 2: Campaign Strategy