Fostering young people active EU citizenship and fighting social exclusion in the age of digital natives by means of an efficient production and distribution of digital contents on the web 2.0.

EMN is holding its international workshop “Create and Share your Digital Media” which will focus on fostering creativity and promoting active citizenship and social inclusion with digital media and the Web 2.0 for October 2009. The goal of the workshop is to promote young people’s, in particular young people at risk of social exclusion, active citizenship and social inclusion through the creative use of digital media in a non-formal learning environment.

The workshop will be hosted at the Mirafiori Media Centre in Torino (Italy) and will involve more than 50 young people aged 15-25 from: Belgium; Finland; Ireland; Italy and Norway

The participants will be engaged in exploring, discussing and developing a critical understanding of the issues of Democracy; Identity and Citizenship; Media Ethics Media and Social Inclusion. They will be coached in planning and producing short digital media on the above issues, in a variety of genres which reflects the best practices implemented by EMN in the last four years: table top animation; stop motion animation; reportage; documentary; 3 camera fiction. They will then share and distribute the media with the tools offered by Web 2.0. The participants will work together in a non-formal learning environment where their background, skills, personal history, culture and their personal approach to problem solving are the true resources of the workshop. The participants will also be encouraged to develop their potential as generators of creative and innovative contents in order to voice issues important to themselves and their communities.

Practical activities will be aimed at producing contents with basic digital tools such as mobile videophones, photo cameras and consumer video cameras. These activities will be interspersed with sessions dedicated to the evaluation of the non-formal learning methodology and activities of the participants. This feedback and input will be immediately used to shape or change, if necessary, the development and implementation of the workshop programme. The workshop will wrap up with a live web broadcast of the media produced, which will involve the participants making a brief live presentations in their different native languages as well as in English.

Expected Results

The experience of the workshop will reinforce the participants’ self esteem, made them aware of the content sharing possibilities offered by the Web 2.0 and boost their ambition to voice their needs, visions and aspirations, and the needs of their community. The young people will learn how to use digital tools to produce short and simple digital media to voice issues important to themselves and their communities and to express their voices through a visual narrative. Furthermore, young people will be challenged to reflect on issues related Media Ethics and the manipulation of information, helping them develop a critical approach to any source of information. Working together to reflect on contents and then create digital media to share on the Web is an opportunity for young people to meet and exchange opinions, to challenge their stereotypes and to get in contact with other people and cultures. By bringing together young people from a variety of countries, EMN will promote mutual understanding and encourage the participants to take part in the discussion on stereotypes and integration. Great importance will be given to the web social networking and the ongoing exchange of digital media, this will result in the growth of a transnational distribution network where young people can play an active role and discuss local, national and international issues. It will also have offered participants the possibility of preparing co-operative transnational projects entirely originated by themselves.

Evaluation

Two group evaluation sessions will be held at the midway point of the workshop and at the end. This will be done through group work and group participation exercises. Many of the exercises will be non verbal to accommodate for non-native English speakers. While a personal evaluation questionnaire will be filled out by all participants during the final session of the workshop. The results of all the evaluation sessions will be included in a final report evaluating all aspects of the workshops success in achieving its stated objectives and goals.

the media unit of the YEPP International Resource Centre

initiatives

INITIATIVES

BIC Ofoten 2011