Initiative – Inclusion – Interaction
Contemporary Theatre for Active Youth
December 15, 2019 – January 15, 2022
The project Initiative – Inclusion – Interaction, Contemporary Theatre for Active Youth is an international Erasmus+ co-funded project realized by 6 partner organizations from 5 countries – Serbia, Germany, North Macedonia, Poland and Switzerland.
The project is directed towards strengthening of youth through active doing, engagement, and exchange using theatre as a powerful tool in social work.
The project aims at:
- Raising sense of initiative, engagement and development of active role in society among young people;
- Contribution to the inclusion of three groups of youth with fewer opportunities – young deaf and hard of hearing youth, young migrants/asylum seekers and young inmates and sensitizing of the majority of population for the needs of those groups;
- Strengthening capacities of organizations which apply theatrical techniques in the work with the youth.
The project was prepared on the basis of good results of the previous Erasmus+ co-funded project which was undertaken by almost all consortium members in 2017 and 2018 titled Theatre – Encounter, Inclusion, Action. The new project is a step further into deeper work with young people including youth with fewer opportunities with impacts on local, national, and international levels.
The project is in concordance with Erasmus+ Inclusion and Diversity Strategy, as well as with EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 in areas of social inclusion, participation in civil society, education and training, and creativity and culture.
The project coordinator is Plavo Theatre – theatre laboratory, Belgrade, Serbia, and partners are Cultural Association of the Deaf of Belgrade “RadivojPopovic”, Belgrade/ Serbia, Theaterlabor, Bielefeld/ Germany, Intimate Theatre, Bitola/ Macedonia, Jubilo Foundation, Wroclaw/ Poland and University of Zurich/ Switzerland.
After a break with project activities from March until December 2020 caused by Covid–19 pandemic, all organizations continued their local theatrical work with young people since the beginning of 2021, including students, young deaf and hard of hearing people, young migrants/asylum seekers, young inmates and young people in general. Continuous theatrical work in duration of several months resulted in performances that were presented in public in all partners’ communities in autumn 2021, as well as within Youth Theatre Festival in Belgrade in October 2021. During summer 2021 two youth mobility exchanges took place in Belgrade and Bitola in June/July 2021, and a mobility for theatrical pedagogues was realized in Bielefeld in July/August 2021. The project was finished with an evaluation meeting that took place in Belgrade in January 2022.