This Project wants to create a creative response on anti-democratic forces in European societies, especially on:

Far-right extremism and populism, related to

• Racism
• Conspiracy theories
• Religious fundamentalism

With the results of our project (creative worktools, handbook, network) we want to encourage youth workers to be able to shift perspectives in their concrete work, and to help young people to find a deeper understanding of people who are “different”, overcoming prejudices and discover the pleasure of exchanging, playing and acting with people they would otherwise never meet.

The project’s general objectives are:

To empower and encourage youth workers to integrate methods into their work that will help them to address anti-democratic attitudes, such as racism, nationalism, intolerance, as well as religious fundamentalism in all its forms.

To enrich the set of methods and tools available for youth work in the above fields with techniques from the field of theatre pedagogy and other performing arts.

To create a core of youth trainers/ workers who have skills to tackle these sensitive issues in their work, and who also can act as multipliers.

TMP Methodology

The concrete output of this workshop will be a common manifesto describing the points to have in mind while creating our methods during TMP 3-year programme.

The final goal of TMP is to provide a method for youth workers, and to give them the tools to conduct a creative and collective debate with their publics.

These methods will explore those questions in particular. How to create a workshop where the youngsters can :

• Share and participate;
• Listen to others;
• Peacefully debate;
• Feel safe to talk about a sensitive subject.

And mostly : How theatre practices may contribute to a better understanding of those topics and offer a creative way to dialog between youngsters ?
Background: Why did you apply for this TMP project? What are the needs you plan to address?

Theatre.Makes.Politics#Theater.Power.Politics proposes to create a creative response on anti-democratic forces in European societies. The consortium considers it is extremely important that youth workers working with young Europeans are able to use creative tools to question how populists and extremists of different colours try to manipulate them. TMP#TPP explores how some groups create opposition up to enmyship to other groups, be they refugees, muslims, “unbelievers”, LGBTQ+ a.s.o.

With the results of the project (creative worktools, handbook, network) we want to encourage youth workers to be able to shift perspectives in their concrete work, and to help young people to find a deeper understanding of people who are “different”, overcoming prejudices and discover the pleasure of exchanging, playing and acting with people they would otherwise never meet.

The project addresses the needs of professional youth workers: youth educators, social workers, professionals from the field,of youth education (members of the associate partners). They will participate as learners in the workshops and will be part of the practical research in training courses.

The project’s general objectives are:

To empower and encourage youth workers to integrate methods into their work that will help them to address anti-democratic attitudes, such as racism, nationalism, intolerance, as well as religious fundamentalism in all its forms.

To enrich the set of methods and tools available for youth work in the above fields with techniques from the field of theatre pedagogy and other performing arts.

To create a core of youth trainers/ workers who have skills to tackle these sensitive issues in their work, and who also can act as multipliers.

Implementation: What activities are you going to implement?

The project’s activities will be implemented in order to:

investigate, map and research about anti-democratic forces (Paris Workshop is a first step here)

design methods from the field of theatre-, dance-, media- and music pedagogy as well as creative writing which will enrich youth work and encourage youth workers to address and encounter anti-democratic forces and ideas, promoting active citizenship, participation and critical thinking amongst their attendees

plan the curricula of workshops applying the aforementioned methods, to implement these workshops in training activities in the partners’ countries

The project will be concluded by multiplier events in the different partners countries associated with a major promotional event in Germany.
Results: What project results and other outcomes do you expect your project to have?

The project results of the Theatre.Makes.Politics#Theater.Power.Politics project will allow us to collect the methods designed into a handbook. This too will be enriched by videos and tools available online which will be widely disseminated amongst youth organizations in Europe as a valuable tool for youth workers.

Another outcome of the project will be dozens of youth workers trained to the new methodologies and capable to renew their workshops with youth groups, including young people with less opportunities. Together, they will address the fight against extremism in Europe and the promotion of the EU civic values in a creative way.