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Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

Municipality of Salt / Formación Virtual

Catalonia

ACTION PHASE 1 RESULTS

Salt community profile: Salt is a singular municipality in the province of Girona (Catalonia). Salt is SINGULAR, not only because a third of its small area – 6,41km2- is covered by Deveses – a special protected natural open area-, mainly as regards the impact of its three waves of migration which have lead to 30,000 inhabitants from over 79 nationalities. This singularity makes difficult its management and causes the creation of many individual education and networking activities by stakeholders which try to solve the most pressing social and educational challenges the community faces: an overwhelming amount of new immigration, degradation of neighbourhoods, and high level of unemployment on the one hand, and lack of vocational training opportunities and strategies for school to deal with uncoordinated pupil entrance, high percentage of non-mother tongue children and high drop-out rates, on the other one.

Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

In view of the seriousness of the situation one of the main priorities to work in the community are the young people who have not been graduated, to create new opportunities for them, being the provision of options for this collective the key issue for the future of Salt. Salt needs strong offers to face the constant increase of drop out youth. It is necessary to offer these young people strong and attractive opportunities to empower them, and to develop and re-motivate their interest in education and labour market. To emphasize that Salt is experiences a lack of opportunities, not of wills. If learning projects are not successful due to the many closed doors, there are no places, no jobs, and no real options...the consequence is collective frustration, non-confidence, and finally dropping out.

LABlearning partners in the plenary hall of the Municipality of Salt

Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

Description of the preparatory community-building activities laying the foundation for EU product dissemination:

The most significant change Xploit have brought about is the creation of the “motor team”: a community work team. This steering group consists of the major education institutions and authorities in the community. The involvement in Xploit has been crucial in joining forces. Several local initiatives, “Youth Task Force” and planned European projects have been first results of this new coalition. Step by step and with support and guidance the “motor team” is starting to think and work for the community in a new European perspective. EU project product(s) disseminated and exploited: From the beginning of 2012 the Youth Department of the Municipality is partner in a new European project: the EU Comenius LABlearning http://www.sosuaarhus-international.com/EUlablearning.htm

The LABlearning project aims to deliver concrete models of media based didactics to prevent drop-out, early school leaving and poor learning results. The project will:

- contribute to the widely acknowledged challenges of using ICT to change the basic didactics. - take the learning into the media world of the youth, instead of asking them to leave their media world and enter the classroom. - establish experiments within the education institutions. The final aim is to offer quality inspirational material to teachers and institutions. In the project Salt will implement two LABlearning facilities-laboratories- within the formal and non formal education system. To do it, the Municipality, as a partner, will use, work and exploit the resources of the local network.

Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

LABlearning youth groups

Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

The International Computer Clubbhouse initiative is also been developed as a result of the community work team. www.computerclubhouse.org

Computer Clubhouse SALT

The Computer Clubhouse addresses young people not fitting well into the traditional classroom, at risk of dropping out and early school leaving - and young people simply not able to learn in the traditional academic way. It offers them re-motivation for learning and networking, based on their own media world, and on their own talents, interests and ambitions.

...Computer Clubhouse interrelated with LABlearning project and the support of the Xploit community network:

“motor team”

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Joining forces: EU projects as engines of change

Lessons to be learned: In the communities work, at least in Spain-Catalonia, one of the main characteristics to note is the instability and constant changes that face the work and networks involved. The timing of the processes to develop and the creation of new methodologies and strategies are very slow and highly dependent on public estates. These realities can be positive and sometimes negative because all processes and achievements can be affected and even stopped. When this happens is necessary to rethink the ways to intervene. The Xploit work in the community of Salt is a very clear example of these changes and new challenges. Since the Xploit project started to work in the community of Salt until now, many changes have been experimented. Changes caused for this so called crisis. The nowadays situation in Catalonia means new ways to proceed. The difficult situation is causing big and fast changes at community level, of course also in the public estate: these changes affect the way to work with and for the community. All this means that in communities like Salt is more difficult or at least slower the way to intervene. Fewer resources, many cuts at all levels, not only economic, also human, which means more and more community challenges. The community is experiencing many initiatives, proposals; community works addressed and aimed directly to the people with less resource, people at risk, are disappearing or decreasing their impact. For the Xploit project all these new challenges will be discussed in the Action Phase 2. Therefore the Action Phase 2 will also work on how to face the new community work processes. These new processes to work will be part of the lessons learned. The new ways to understand, explain and be able to readapt the work methodologies in the community will be the Xploit challenges for the future, as well as, the way to disseminate and exploit the new learnings.