EDU is a no-profit national project intended for educational institutions and universities all over Italy. EDU focuses on the themes developed by UNESCO in the fields of education, communication, natural sciences, human and social sciences, sustainable development and heritage. The main goal of EDU, recognized in the Mediterranean youth report 2021, are: the SDG goal n. 4 (quality education); have more impacts at local level in terms of social innovation.
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
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Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Associazione Italiana Giovani per l'UNESCO Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Pietro Last name of representative: Bova Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: National Project Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via di Monte Giordano Town: Rome Postal code: 00186 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 340 484 6911 E-mail:info@aiguofficial.it Website:https://aiguofficial.it/
URL:https://www.facebook.com/aigu.official Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #AIGU #Heritage #intangibleheritage #youth #sustainability #education #socialinnovation
EDU is a national project – developed by the Italian Association Youth for UNESCO (AIGU) – intended for educational institutions and universities all over Italy. EDU focuses on the themes developed by UNESCO in the fields of education, communication, natural sciences, human and social sciences, sustainable development and heritage. EDU, which comes from a cooperation with the Ministry of Education and has been renewed year by year since 2017, is implemented at local level by the AIGU regional committees. All the activities and workshops developed within the project are free and are held in schools or universities. Starting from 2020, the EDU project also aims to implement actions according to the SDGs from Agenda 2030 (UN). The main goal of EDU – recognized at European level among the 29 best practices of the Mediterranean youth report 2021 - is the n. 4: quality education.
Some data referring to the period from 2017 until nowadays : +7600 students participating from all 20 Italian regions; 102 workshops; more than 200 schools and universities involved; +320 partners cooperating together throughout Italy (including technical sponsors and donors).
In the 2022/2023 edition, EDU took the name of "EDU - Farò Cultura", and based the outputs (and outcomes) of the workshops on: 1) Faro Convention, 2) Agenda 2030.
"EDU Farò Cultura" officially ended on 5 November 2022, with the presentation of the qualitative and quantitative results: 1) increasing students' knowledge and skills; 2) showing the students’ outputs and allowing them to receive feedback from experts on each topic.
The project continues to renew itself, encouraging more and more students to become active citizens involved in decision-making processes for the regeneration of the places that they want to take care of. This last objective is pursued by transferring knowledge and skills in the field of: sustainable and equitable development, regeneration of places, protection of heritage and landscapes.
Education
heritage
social innovation
participation
competences
The EDU project, from 2020 pursues even more clearly the achievement of the 17 goals of the Agenda 2030. In its 2020 edition – called “EDU Agenda 2030” – 20 school workshops were started, and in 2021-2022 edition the EDU workshops were 16. For each of the 20 Italian regions, at least one workshop was started, for a total amount of 36. Starting from Goal nr 4 of the Agenda 2030 (quality education), it was possible to tailor the project based on: 1)the needs of the student communities involved in relation to their territory and landscape; 2)the heritage recognized by the community, including the UNESCO sites and also the intangible heritage present in different territories; 3)knowledge and skills that could be transferred to students for the regeneration of places or the sustainable use of heritage and landscape, with the support of AIGU members - PhDs or experts in different fields - and external experts.
There are many results gathered from these regional workshops, including students' projects and products, but what matters most is the impact that these skills can have in the long term: on the community, on the cultural heritage, on the landscape. It is therefore not wrong to combine the EDU objectives with the path toward the ecological transition, in line with the path toward the future outlined by the European Union and taken up by the Italian "National Recovery and Resilience Plan" (PNRR).
Finally, the alignment of the EDU project with goal 4 of the UN Agenda is also internationally recognized. Proof of this alignment is the recent inclusion among the 29 best practices in the "Mediterranean Youth Solutions Report 2021" - a document prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) - Youth Mediterranean Santa Chiara Lab (University of Siena) with the collaboration of the Mediterranean Action Plan of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP/MAP) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)
The declinability of the EDU project, which pursues the sustainable goals of the Agenda 2030 and the link between social innovation, identity heritage and culture, has made it possible to adapt the workshops on different territories with the possible start of bottom-up innovation processes. This peculiar adaptability of the project in linking local heritage, landscape, sustainability, competences and social innovation, is exemplary in this context. Results were also achieved in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits).
Some examples of outputs of “EDU Farò cultura” (2021-2022) are those achieved in the Italian regions of: Lazio, Sicily, Piedmont. For the Lazio Region, in Rome, students identified the school building as a neighborhood asset to be redeveloped and they made it the object of their artistic interventions. At the same time, this action of regeneration through art has become the subject of a short film entitled "Petalos" (https://vimeo.com/717237396) made in collaboration with the film director Alessandra Pescetta and Rome “UNESCO City of Film” (UNESCO Creative Cities Network). For the Sicily Region, the young students involved developed a dialogue on social innovation, starting from the "Opera dei pupi" (Sicilian puppets traditionally used for theatrical performances of "operas"). The students, through the story of the “Opera dei Pupi” and the techniques for the realization and representation of the “Pupi” and its characters, started a dialogue on the issues of social, economic and political inclusion by analyzing our contemporary society. In Piedmont teenagers involved to create a collective artwork about the UNESCO landscapes. After geology, art, sustainable tourism and promotion lessons, they did a guided tour in Art park La court (Monferrato), where the artwork is placed. The experience made it possible to acquire a new sense of belonging to places through a creative proces
Regarding inclusion, EDU 2021-22 edition specifically activated 4 workshops in 4 Italian regions: Marche, Umbria, Molise, Abruzzo. The workshop in Abruzzo was started with the intention of increasing and adapting the accessibility of local heritage information for blind people. With AIGU members and external experts, two interactive tactile devices were produced to depict the Abbey of Santa Maria di Casanova and the Cathedral of San Massimo di Penne. These two devices contributed to create a virtuous exhibition network created by students from all over the Abruzzo region, called the "Widespread Tactile Museum”. In Molise, workshops were held on the theme of ethnic minorities integration for 3 third-year high school classes in the municipality of Guglionesi. At the end, each class created "a narrative journey" on the history of inclusion in Molise. In Umbria, the goal was to improve the integration of school-age minorities, reinforcing their sense of belonging to the new context and community. This aim was achieved by increasing the knowledge of the city, fostering an active role of students in creating a new possible narrative of the territory: through graphic language and new technologies. In the Marche Region the workshop was based on the technological and social innovation of cultural heritage through a bottom-up process. Students developed a sample of digital cultural heritage, by creating low-cost immersive virtual tours based on augmented reality (AR). In this way, thanks to this capacity-building approach, it was possible to implement the idea of a smarter management of heritage sites. This approach helped in fostering physical and cognitive inclusion, as well as accessibility, by enhancing the practical and experiential component of cultural heritage. Through a sustainable and resilient model, the aim was to create a kind of community heritage that highlights the sense of belonging and identity that can be preserved and passed onto future generations
Based on the dictates of participatory action research (PAR) - as described by Prof. Pieter Van Den Broeck and Moulert (Moulaert & MacCallum, 2019; Van Den Broeck et al., 2020), i.e. with expert knowledge only in the role of facilitator (or initiator) of social and bottom-up innovation processes – The EDU project has always intended students' involvement as a step for a domino effect on local communities. By transferring knowledge and skills useful for bottom-up innovation and social innovation processes, communities have seen different impacts: the increase of awareness and sensitivity regarding issues such as heritage, landscape and sustainability; the increase of knowledge and skills of a small part of the community, i.e. young students, which will be able to produce a positive impact well beyond the closure of the workshops; the production of outputs and actions implemented directly by students, such as the creation of devices useful for a more inclusive enjoyment of culture (Abruzzo, Marche, etc.) or the re-generation of student community spaces (not only) (Lazio, Piedmont, etc.). The EDU project starts from workshops for students, in order to give something back to the community. Furthermore, another element is the generation/enhancement of feelings linked to active citizenship, as in the case of the Calabrian workshop where, with the use of the PAR methodology called "photovoice" (Bova, 2022; Wang & Burris, 1997 ; Wang, 2006), students started from the narrative of their own identity landscape to reach civic monitoring of the expenditure of European funds using the open platform "Monithon"(https://it.monithon.eu/report/view/1170). Finally, it should be noted that the EDU project has involved an average of about 700 students every year since 2017. For the Farò cultura edition, nominated here, the project has involved 619 students and we plan to involve the same number for the 2022-2023 edition already in progress.
The EDU 2021/2022 national project aimed to strengthen young people's ability to critically read their territory in its many aspects and the relationship between the latter and the international dimension. To facilitate this process, it was essential to guide young people in creating clear and specific interpretations starting from the analysis and reflection on Heritage as a means of promoting inclusion and well-being, of the individual and of the community, from a perspective of sustainability. In this process the collaborations activated with external experts and with the plurality of local actors were fundamental - the municipalities in which the workshops were held, as well as various local partners, universities and/or donors for the events such as for example Coop Liguria for the laboratory activities in the municipality of Genoa– which, with their activities, have made it possible to enrich the contents, material for didactic use, spaces for learning and experimentation, spaces for displaying the final outputs of the workshops, as well as methodologies and new pedagogical ideas. In particular, at local level, every regional committe, after define the national fil rouge of regional workshop (i.e. for ed. 2022 the fil rouge was Faro Convenction + Agenda 2030), start every edition of the project contacting various stakeholders and the Regional School Office.
Furthermore, at a national level (in 2021) the former Undersecretary for Education of the Ministry of Education (ex MIUR) Barbara Floridia enrolled us in a project promoted by the MIUR called "Ri-Generazione scuola". This ministerial project aims to bring knowledge and skills to Italian schools, adding them to the school training offer, relating to the goals of the UN Agenda 2030 for sustainability (https://www.istruzione.it/ri-generazione-scuola/).
The results were obtained with the involvement of AIGU members as experts in the required fields of knowledge or with the support of external experts. Social innovation and the transfer of knowledge and skills for the activation of bottom-up processes, have been achieved in different ways: 1) based on the needs of student communities; 2) based on the local cultural and tangible heritage. Participants have developed new knowledge and a wide range of skills, from science to humanitarian fields. Furthermore, EDU workshops have well complemented the knowledge provided by schools, acting not as a substitute to school lessons, but as an additional value. This has been strongly emphasized by a series of surveys that students and teachers were asked to fill in, before and after the workshops, to verify their increase in knowledge and skills on the topics covered and the outputs achieved. In the EDU workshops, scientific skills have always merged with the humanistic knowledge necessary for debating on heritage, on the use of places and on their possible regeneration even with small interventions (Abruzzo, Lazio, etc.). This is a peculiarity of the EDU project, which over the years has developed a successful methodology able to link the issues of cultural heritage and landscape - in line with the UNESCO mission - with the sustainability objectives of the UN. This aspect is an added value in both spheres of scientific and humanistic fields. AIGU manages to implement EDU in a way that brings attention to humanities issues, developing a dialogue on the requests coming from different communities and transferring the scientific expertise needed to produce outputs or interventions in places. This aspect of EDU is also characteristic of AIGU. The aim is not only to stimulate community engagement in the regeneration and inclusive use of valuable heritage, but also to empower the community to take action for the regeneration of degraded places that the community itself claims.
As previously mentioned, the peculiarity of the EDU project is its evolution by bringing together humanistic knowledge and hard science skills in school workshops to stimulate the process of social and bottom-up innovation. Furthermore, the peculiarity that the Italian Association Youth for UNESCO (AIGU) represents must be taken into consideration: it is the largest and most structured association of young people in the world regarding UNESCO and UN missions. Being AIGU distributed in all Italian regions, with regional committees, working groups (ad hoc), a Directive Council and a Board, the implementation of EDU is itself bottom-up because it starts from regional committees. The workshops are not defined by the Board or the Executive Council, but by the regional committees, which know better the specific situation in each territory and are also the real point of contact and dialogue with the communities of students involved. The innovative character of EDU can be seen in its way of perceiving and collecting the requests of youth communities - compared to mainstream actions in the same field - offering answers (in a practical and theoretical way l) that the normal educational channels are unable to fulfill (according to what emerged from the surveys proposed to students). Finally, the monitoring and self-monitoring system of EDU, through surveys, allows AIGU to work on the weaknesses and strengths of the initiative so as to improve its "reliability" and “replicability” year by year. Lastly, it should be noted that the entire initiative is carried out as a voluntary activity by the members, who, through fundraising groups, are able to bring the workshops to life and return output to schools and communities, never for profit.
The transferability and versatility of EDU are the characteristics that have allowed it to be replicated for 6 consecutive editions, in the 20 Italian regions. The workshops are developed according to the knowledge of each territory and the needs of local communities, reported by individual members in the various AIGU regional committees. The regional branches of AIGU, plus the turnover of members over the years, allows to: 1) develop a dialogue with the different schools present in the territories; 2) have a deeper knowledge on the tangible and intangible heritage, as well as on the needs of the communities, on which the regional workshops are based; 3) have a common but non-binding national theme for the workshops (Agenda 2030, Faro Convention, axes of the New European Bauhaus), giving members the freedom to define the content and to be an added value and not a substitute to the educational offer. Furthermore, EDU has demonstrated its replicability and ability to evolve, so as to respond to the challenges of society, by engaging in dialogues and facilitating actions with young learners. The methodologies adopted for the implementation of the workshops are several and based on a participatory approach (photovoice, world café, walk&talk, etc.). The technologies explored and used in the workshops are always combined with useful knowledge to start social innovation processes, for example: 3D printing and augmented reality technologies with the aim of fostering a more inclusive use of heritage sites, or the creation of furniture and/or devices, using recycled materials; the use of open data and open knowledge sources, to encourage community engagement and the launch of civic and proactive civic monitoring; the production of photographic, videographic, artistic material to create a narrative of the spaces of the community or to start a re-generations; the participatory regeneration of places directly made by students, as it was the case for the workshop in Rome.
Since the EDU project is a widespread initiative on a national scale - widespread in all Italian regions, involving young people from schools with different educational offers as well as young people of different age groups - the methodologies used may vary. The common thread of the methodologies is the approach, developed according to participatory action research (PAR) methodologies (Borda, 2006). This approach is based on community engagement and in the case of EDU it is the community of young students that is involved in the workshops. Moreover, the workshops are useful for launching technical and social innovation processes, bringing students as near as possible to the top of the “participation ladder” (Arnstein, 1969). Among the various methodologies used, the following can be found: 1) the so-called "photovoice" methodology where young people are guided toward a proactive dialogue with local decision makers and/or toward actions for the regeneration of places, starting from the community perception of places, heritage and landscapes; 2) the “walk&talk” recognized in the scientific literature as a useful tool for debate and critical thinking (Böttger & Költzsch, 2021; Miller & Krizan, 2016), a method that links the exploration of places with proactive debates about them, in order to produce actions for the regeneration of places based on inclusiveness (of places and heritage); 3) the “world café”, recognized in the scientific literature as a useful method to improve and implement the exchange of ideas or "cross dissemination" (Brown, 2002, 2010; Schieffer et al., 2004); the "learning by doing" which always comes together with the methodologies for exchanging ideas and solutions, getting to learn by doing what can be done to regenerate or make more inclusive places and uses of tangible and intangible heritage.
At the base of EDU, as mentioned, there is the objective of pursuing the UNESCO missions and the missions of the UN. The challenges at global and European level form the common thread that connects the various regional workshops into a single fabric, forming a common line, but not binding the workshops in defining their content. Consequently, content is adapted and adaptable to schools to be additional and not a substitute for the educational offer. Furthermore, the main aspect of the EDU workshops’ content and outputs, is to respond to global challenges in a local way. For this latter objective, the EDU workshops are set up to transfer knowledge and skills useful for initiating young people to and/or toward the activation of innovation and social innovation actions and processes. For the candidate edition of EDU, i.e. the 2021-22 edition, the common thread among the various regional workshops was twofold: 1) the Faro convention, hence the subtitle “Farò cultura” ("I will make culture"), of the Council of Europe, to tackle the important link between heritage and community; the Agenda 2030 of the UN, in continuation with the EDU 2020-21 edition; with the aim to achieve the sustainability goals. However, EDU workshops still involve a very small part of the student community, 619 students (2021-22) represent a minimal percentage of young people in Italy. This is the reason why the EDU project wants to act at local level but it also includes: dissemination phases, with national face-to-face and online events called EDU talks; an "EDU talks” section to talk about online EDU best practices and stimulate similar actions; the production of outputs and outcomes such as popular scientific publications, for example the IV volume SID for the 2020-21 edition.
Finally, EDU does not aim only to produce results (outcomes) but also to stimulate similar initiatives at the local level, transferring to young people the skills to replicate the activities autonomously.
The objectives and impacts envisaged by the EDU initiative are multiple. First of all, the goal of EDU is to increase knowledge on the topics covered. This objective can be considered achieved for the 2021-22 EDU edition, based on the surveys proposed to students before and after the 16 regional workshops. The surveys showed an increase in knowledge on the topics covered by 58.2% (on a sample of 115 students).
Secondly, EDU's goal is to co-produce outputs with the students, to bring new value to the communities students are part of. To reach this second result, the skills necessary for the production of the outputs were transferred. Moreover, AIGU members played the role of facilitators within the process of production of the outputs.
In some cases the outputs matched the recovery or regeneration of a place (Piedmont, Lazio, etc.). In other cases the outputs of the workshops took the form of a narrative of places and their tangible and intangible heritage (Sardinia, Campania, Basilicata, Liguria, Lombardy, Valle D'Aosta).
In still other cases, the outputs have returned the civic monitoring of the spending of European funds that impact the landscape (Calabria), or the narration of cultures and community places (Lazio, Sicily, Tuscany, Veneto), or, even, the production of devices for inclusion and for a more inclusive fruition of spaces (Abruzzo, Marche, Umbria, Molise).
Finally, the outputs created by each workshop can be considered as the base of the general outcome of the EDU project. The long-lasting impact of the initiative is visible in the legacy of the materials and documents produced by the students for the communities, but equally important is the promotion of active citizenship- merged with new knowledge and skills that are also useful in green working environments and culture – able to replicate activities and initiate further social innovation processes.
Encouraging the development of new skills is one of the main goals of the EDU project. This main goal of EDU must be contextualized in the frame given by the link between the different dimensions of the territories - heritage, intangible heritage, landscape recognized by the communities - and the sustainability objectives of the 2030 agenda. This frame leads to defining which incentive skills to encourage actions aimed at the recovery of heritage and the urban and non-urban landscape - also through actions of reading only and recognition of these, in a useful way to stimulate the visioning of solutions that respond as much as possible to the needs of the communities - which must be connected to a social innovation that gives more voice to the younger and less listened to parts of the community in decision making processes. In summary, the vision for the usefulness and impact of the skills transferred and the social networks activated in terms of regeneration and sustainability is always present in the intentions of EDU.
