Story Abroad – projektet för livslångt lärande. Genom att söka bidrag från EU kunde ungdomar skaffa sig unika erfarenheter och ett livslångt lärande genom att studera och arbeta utomlands. Bidraget täckte resa, kost, logi och fickpengar under vistelsen, som var från två till tolv månader.
About the project
STORY Abroad: validating and connecting experiences of working and studying abroad through digital storytelling is a one-year project that fosters cooperation in the field of youth between Program Countries and Partner Countries gathering organizations from USA, Brazil, South Africa, Italy, UK, Portugal, Belgium, Austria and Sweden.
From April 2015 through a series of initiatives – international meetings, seminars and conferences, local workshops and cultural activities – the project aims at enhancing the use digital storytelling, to guide young people to self-evaluate their competences acquired abroad.
The purpose is to improve the quality and the recognition of youth work and non-formal learning by encouraging young people to turn their life and working experiences gained in foreign countries into learning opportunities recognizing the skills and key competences acquired during the mobility.
Living or working abroad, for a short or long period, are unconscious informal learning moments that can be turn into more useful experiences if you encourage people to reflect upon it and share them.
The project contributes to strengthen the role of youth in the society and speed up the process of active participation in EU and beyond.
StoryA aims at:
- exchanging and sharing skills, knowledge and experience related to youth work across the partnership and building the capacity of the organisations involved.
- developing a pedagogical legacy through the development of course materials that can be shared across the partnership and distributed beyond.
- exploring the ability of digital storytelling as a means of recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning reaching policy goals through the provision of soft and hard skills for young people.
- investigating the comparative impact of digital storytelling workshops in different countries.
- increasing confidence and self-esteem in youngsters by raising awareness of the importance of key competences.
Results and stories arepublished online and collected in a e-book: Travelling stories. Digital Storytelling with young people studyng and working abroad.
The StoryA partnership consists of European organisation Medshots CRL(PT), University of Brighton(UK), Verein digital Story Vienna(AT), Perspectives(BE), Stockholm School of Arts / Kulturskolan Stockholm (SE) and international Center for Digital Storytelling (USA), Museo da Pessoa (BR), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (South Africa).
Digital stories
About the project: Travelling Stories - Digital storytelling (PDF)
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/storya (www)
Contact in Sweden: eva.darell@stockholm.se
A. What were our goals in the project? Why it happened the way it happened?
The goal of Stockholm Schools of Arts in this project was to broaden our perspectives within the different fields of Digital Storytelling, to network with the other organisations and to learn from one another. It was also to acquire new skills, experiences and outcomes from the project into the Stockholm School of Arts activities and also disseminate information about the project to stakeholders, contacts and other project partners in the EU
Another goal was to share with the project partners our 36 unique methods of non-formal learning for young people, as well as good practice in coaching youngsters to explore media & art by themselves. We brought the following experience to the project: (a) Since 2001, we have worked with over 10,000 youngsters in DST in socio-cultural contexts, both in national as well as international projects (b) We have managed over 30 international projects within the Education, Youth and INTERREG programmes. Finally, we really wanted to inspire young people to study and work abroad, e.g. to apply for a European Voluntary Service EU-programme preferably within the field of culture and media.
B. Who are we? Where? Context?
The Stockholm School of Arts is a municipality activity within the Culture administration in the City of Stockholm, and provides a wide range leisure activities for young people aged 6–22 years who reside in the city of Stockholm.
Courses cover a wide range of activities in music, drama, dance, fine art and media. There are currently 15 000 young people enrolled and the organisation hosts a staff of 350 teachers, technicians and administrative staff.
The activities include the Centre of Resources for young people with special needs. Our aim is to give all young people opportunities to participate in cultural activities and express themselves artistically regardless of their disabilities, family or economic circumstances.
Also we arrange in-service training and workshops for teachers, youth leaders, project managers and directors. European Voluntary Service, hosting students on work placements and organizing study visits.
Since 2002 Stockholm School of Arts has collaborated on and is coordinator of different EU-projects within the field of Youth, Education, Culture and the INTERREG programmes.
C. What Happened?
We were hosting a five-day-long local training course in Stockholm, using Digital Storytelling methods with 10 youngsters and 10 youth workers. We also planned a three-day cultural event and local information campaign for staff, local stakeholders and NGOs.
D. So how did it go?
There were 11 young people attending the training and also 11 stories were produced. Also youth workers with different skills were participating in the training and supported the group throughout the process*. We used drama exercises and value exercises for warming up and ice-breaking.
The local cultural event ran for two days instead of the anticipated three days. With 90 people in the audience including youth workers, staff, international guests, and young people from all over Stockholm, we had more than the expected number of visitors.
E. What worked? Successes
The five-day long workshop in Digital Storytelling with additional drama workshops exceeded our expectations. We were expecting that some young people would drop out from the workshop as the summer holiday was nearly at an end, but everyone attending the workshop participated from the beginning until the very end.
The thing that surprised us most during the Digital Storytelling part of the project was the many different ways the participants worked with their images. Some of them drew, some made a pixilation of their drawings, some used moving images and some made a mix of everything. As facilitators we learned a lot from the production of these stories.
The final productions were outstanding and we were very impressed of the young people's collaborations.
On top of that, five of the youngsters are currently applying to go abroad on their EVS-internship this autumn.
F. What were challenges?
The hardest challenge was to gather a group of young people who fitted the profile for the project. To find young people from socioeconomic disadvantaged areas who have already been studying or working abroad was impossible. Also to be able to gather a group like this for a project taking place over a longer period of time was hard. Young adults in their 20s as a group see rapid change. So we were happy we could find and engage with 11 young people from different parts of Stockholm.
Another challenge was the organisation of the three-day creative event. To gather the young people to present their films after they have started work or the university term has commenced and to attract sufficient visitors for three days was difficult. Eventually, we ran a two-day event with six of the 11 youngsters who attended the workshops. We had about 90 visitors so we were satisfied that we had achieved more or less what we had set out to within the frame of the project, but it was a tough.
G. What we learned? How would we approach the project knowing what we know now?
If we were doing this project again, we would have combined the cultural event with the workshop, so that this would happen directly after the five days so that while we had all young people gathered together we would present the work for a wider audience.
Preferably we would also have only one event. We would also arrange for the young people from different countries to come together for a workshop. That would have been great for the project, to let the young people meet each other and also share their different ways of approaching the workshops.
Story A Stockholm workshop
