Under Construction
Concept
UNDER CONSTRUCTION is an audiovisual project that takes place in two different countries, in Portugal and The Netherlands, with two groups of young people in the age of 16 to 25 years. Each group has about ten participants, youngsters with fewer opportunities, from neighbourhoods of little prosperity. The duration of the project is six months. The young people are offered to work with audiovisual techniques, video and music. The idea of the project is to initiate and enlarge the consciousness / awareness of their personal position and their position in relation to Europe, to give them the possibility to express themselves and take responsibility in decision-making as democratic citizens of Europe.
The project is designed to give disfavoured youth an opportunity to be heard, and to represent their point of view in image and sound, by internet and digital techniques, by conversation and debate. They will have the chance to gain in a playful, informal and planned way an experience and proficiency they will use in the future. Girls and boys of different cultural backgrounds, not studying, will get into dialogue with each other and with a similar group of youth in another country. They will notice the other, another culture and a parallel world elsewhere in a European relation – an awareness of local and international democratic citizenship in Europe.
Where
Portugal and Holland are the EU countries where the project is to take place. Both countries have become, particularly in the big cities, multicultural societies. They became homeland for many refugees and economic immigrants. Beside disfavoured young autochthons, the cities in both countries count many young people of parents in diaspora, of political and economic refugees. This last group has very few social and economic means and meets with other social obstacles such as discrimination and exclusion. Poor schooling and as a consequence little chance on the labour market and on self expression bring these young people to the gutter. This group is however not without aptitude and talent. If we notice that more than fifty percent of the youth in Holland has vocational training, which is not different in Portugal, and that more than seventy percent of this group consists of children of allochtone parents, we may assume that natural aptitude and talent in this group remain hidden. These young people are the repositories of the future on local and European level.
In Lisbon they are present and involved in their neighbourhood. They are organized and can be engaged by the secondary school and Junta de Freguesia do Lumiar (Centro de Artes e Formação). Junta de Freguesia do Lumiar is unique in offering them activities and pursuits. In Utrecht the situation is comparable – socio- educative centers in the districts of Overvecht and Tuinwijk keep in touch with this youth.
A group of 4 young people, of the same age but in another social position, will be appointed as coaches and leaders of the project. They must be role models in transmitting information or knowledge.
Objectives, working methods and results
Working with different cultural backgrounds, with the purpose of treating differences in a positive way, attentive to correspondence, the individual participant will function as a representative of his own culture in a wider context.
Students of the Art, Media & Technology Faculty at the Utrecht School of Arts will give a workshop in making a video and/or music. Artists who have experience with this type of education and projects for young people will give coaching. There will be an exchange between professionals and participants and participants will have to work together and to make decisions together as well as individually.
Making video and music, with or without dancing, rap or hip-hop, are quite popular activities among youngsters. They are all born in the present image-society. The learning process is therefore practice directed, supportive and initiatory.
The participants are actively engaged in all phases of the project, in making their own decisions, their own planning, groups, division of functions, their cooperation, short, in taking responsibility. The ‘products’ of this project are the individual video films and music, that will be brought together in a documentary of the total project – the work process of these young people, interviews, their meetings, the neighbourhood, the debate – in the form of a video and a book.
Sponsors and partners of project Under Construction