The Project

The project
Draw your thoughts – Graphic facilitation & Storytelling to enhance creative and intercultural skills – is an 18 months co-funded Erasmus plus project (KA2: Capacity Building project in the field of Youth) whose aim is to enhance the professional, social and personal skills and competences of youth workers which will lead to an improvement of the youth sector as well as social inclusion and empowerment of youngsters with fewer opportunities. This will be achieved thanks to the use of creative methods such as Graphic Facilitation and Storytelling in local workshops complemented with international mobility for the development of intercultural awareness and enrichment of the experience of youth workers, youngsters and the final outputs of the project.
Creativity and non-formal activities will be the tools for focusing on the methods of Storytelling and Graphic Facilitation in community context and in working with youngsters, leading to the development of a final raising awareness campaign by the participants involved.
The innovative elements of the projects are:
Storytelling
It is the art to tell stories. It can be used as:
- a set of methodologies used by professionals with people at risk;
- a way of thinking (Postmodernism, Social Constructivism and/or PostStructuralism);
- a profession (there are people who are storytellers).
Graphic Facilitation
It is a method of using images to lead a group or individuals towards a goal. [It is ] a visual process conducted by a graphic facilitator.
(“Graphical Facilitation” Erasmus+ Project)
Reciprocal Maieutic Approach
A popular dialectic methodology of research and self-analysis tested by Danilo Dolci. It promotes a sense of responsibility in the communities and individuals and can be defined as a “collective exploration process that considers individuals’ experience and intuition as a reference point” (Dolci, 1996).
Within the project, Storytelling is used as a mean of self-awareness and personal/professional development supported by Graphic Facilitation, which will allow participants to convey images, ideas and thoughts through a visual communication;
The Reciprocal Maieutic Approach, will be used as a basic methodology of research and self/community analysis thus empowering the interaction among participants and the final outcomes of the project;
The project will involve a total of 11 youth workers from each partner county, who will be the protagonist of each stage: from local workshops to the international training, through the job shadowing phase, they will be involved as active actors, while also learning a new set of important skills. Thanks to the intercultural approach and tools used, participants will benefit of a life enriching experience that will give them new set of skills and will strengthen their role as youth workers, a role that is essential for fostering young people’s active participation and civic engagement.

Activities
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Desk and Field Research on the Use of Storytelling and Graphic Facilitation + graphic vocabulary
Among the project’s results: the Desk research on good practices on the use of Storytelling as a means of self-expression and personal development and on Graphic facilitation and visual tools in use in youth work and youth organizations. The Desk research was conducted in each partner country on the field of social issues, enriched by interviews with experienced educators and trainers. Curious to find out what has been produced by the partners? You can download the good practices identified in each partner country:
International Training course
After the creation of the visual vocabularies, partners met in the framework of the International Training course organized in the framework of the project. Participants had the chance of sharing the research findings collected and of analyzing peculiarities and similarities. They were trained in the use of Storytelling with Graphic facilitation for the creation of a visual “Draw your Thoughts database”. The training was conducted using the reciprocal Maieutical Approach and was the chance for a hands-on the tools and methods. A great experience!
Read the article about the training in our News section, you will understand better what happened!
Local Workshops
Based on the content of the Training Course, each partner organized 6 workshops focused: on one side, on the personal development of local youngsters, fostered through the method of Storytelling and Graphic facilitation; on the other side, community level activities were developed in the creation of the civic awareness campaign organized in synergy with local youngsters. Several young people came together to work on the project workshops!
Find out what happened by visiting our Visual diaries section.
Job shadowing
Each organization hosted an intercultural group composed by one representative for each organization. During their stay, the job shadowers supported the creation of a local awareness raising campaign, while improving their intercultural competences and understanding.
Several youth workers moved between the different countries of the consortium to discover youth work! Read about their experiences in our Visual diaries
Final manual "Storytelling with graphic facilitation as a method for social inclusion and empowerment of young people"
After the experimentation, the collection of results! The final project manual, consists of a brief description of the project and the method, followed by the collection of experiences and results of the local training/learning/workshops activities. It also includes tips and tools for organising awareness-raising campaigns using narrative and graphic facilitation. Its aim is to show the effectiveness and impact of the methods and how to use them as a tool for empowering young people in the daily work of facilitators.