We are exploring new ways through which we can approach social inclusion for vulnerable youths after the pandemic.

More than 20 youth workers from different corners of Europe met in Italy, where they spent 8 days together. “8 magical days”, says Patricia, who participated in this training in which various perspectives of some issues faced by young people were explored, as well as possible solutions, through art. From different types of theatre, dance, movement, painting, to sewing, embroidery or poetry writing, it was a week full of creative ideas that can be put into practice for the social reintegration of people from vulnerable backgrounds.
For Dariana, the other artfusionist who participated in the training in Vicenza, the experience of the ReCAP project translates into ”being open to try and experiment with new methods of working with teenagers & excitement to start planning activities at local level”.

The purpose of this training was to bring together youth workers in order to learn together new methods of non-formal education through which they can tackle social inclusion. These educational methods have been collected in a toolbox mainly dedicated to youth workers, intended to provide support tools to improve social inclusion and empowerment of disadvantaged youths living in post-pandemic Europe.

The Toolbox is the result of a great collaborative effort between 10 project partners, coordinated by La Piccionaia: the work done is based on the needs analysis made in the local context of the organizations involved in the project, and the tools collected in the document have been tested among the youth workers during the training in Italy.

The project partner La Piccionaia, responsible for this outcome of the project, coordinated the process of creating the toolkit through two stages:

  • Gathering ideas from partners. Each partner, together with their youth workers, proposed a number of cultural, artistic, creative and theatrical tools that exist, that they have previously used or that could be used when working with vulnerable youths. The criteria for the selection of tools were previously agreed by all partners, they were asked to provide different types of input (direct experience of youth workers, knowledge of youth workers, relevant theories and literature in the specific field);
  • Adaptation of tools. In order to adapt the tools collected to the specific needs of vulnerable young people in the post-pandemic context, emerging from the needs analysis previously conducted, the partners were asked to identify and propose possible solutions for their implementation in difficult situations.

Thanks to this useful toolkit, youth workers within the project will now be able to implement the methods they have selected specifically in their respective local context, while supporting vulnerable youth.

After publishing in English, the Toolbox will soon be available in Bulgarian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish.

Until then, the toolbox is available in English here.

*The ReCAP project is financed through Erasmus+, a program of the European Union.