Story – Diverse Communicator – Youth exchange in United Kingdom

Project Diverse Communicator offers unique means by which we can explore ourselves (personal competence) and who we are in the wider world (social, citizenship and cultural awareness competences) to communicate with others (culture expression, empathy and multilingual competences).

Project aims to tackle nowadays youth issues through 5 main senses:

1. Seeing

2. Touching

3. Smelling

4. Tasting

5. Hearing

in dynamic scope (moving).

We put emphasis to movement and particularly dance as a form of art which (in experiential way) helps to open a dialogue within and between individuals and communities. You will also have a chance to experience improvisational theater

Day 0: Setting up, logistics, team building

29 participants and 7 leaders from UK, Italy, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria gathered in the first part of Diverse Communicator youth exchange in Kennington, United Kingdom.

Culture, another key concept in the discipline of art, refers to the values, beliefs, norms, and rules shared by the group and learned through communication. Therefore, our main point is to give equal opportunities for everyone through social inclusion using art as the main tool.

Here we are

We started to know each other through name games, movement session, trust activities and team building.

We are really excited to start this journey togheter and glad to meet people from UK, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria.

We can’t wait to start the new activities! 😎

Understanding who we are

Today we dived deep into understanding who we are and how we perceive ourselves, while other may see us differently than we do. We also acknowledged our bodies: we are here, now. 🙋

How to communicate?

Improvisation is the key!

We started the day with some improvisation sessions: how hard is it to always answer “yes”, “no”, or “yes, but…” to questions? How are our responses influencing how other people see us?

Interacting with locals

Interacting with the locals!

Today we went into adventure by interacting with the locals of Kennington and Ashford. We spread informations about the topics and goals of our project and got to know so many interesting things from the inhabitants of the closest cities and villages around.

Tired but happy, we finished the day with a beautiful bulgarian intercultural night 🇧🇬

Forum Theater

Improvisation time! Today we had the opportunity to play on the stage with Forum Theatre!

Do you know what it is? It’s one of the techniques under the umbrella term of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). This relates to the engagement of spectators influencing and engaging with the performance as both spectators and actors, termed “spect-actors”, with the power to stop and change the performance. As part of TO, the issues dealt with in forum theatre are often related to areas of social justice, with the aim of exploring solutions to oppression featured in the performance

Open Space

Today we had a session for Open Space, in which each participant had the opportunity to present a workshop and lead it. We had so much fun with zumba, Biodanza technique, stretching, frisbee skills, massage sessions and creativity workshops!
We closed the day with a very italian intercultural night 🇮🇹

See you next time, Good Bye

“The project was able to effectively support me in developing various competencies related to personal competence, social and cultural awareness, culture expression, empathy, and multilingual skills.

For instance, through the use of movement and senses in discussion and exploration, I was able to develop a better understanding of nonverbal communication and how to use it for improved communication. The use of art education methods to ignite discussion about intercultural dialogue also effectively empowered my proximity, interactivity, and socialization skills.”

“I am more aware of my body and the boundaries i set for others. I became more open to non verbal forms of communication. I learned about other cultures, through cultural night. The most important is that I improved my English, and proved myself to be a good translated.”

“- Every morning we had reflection time to realize our thoughts and events that has happened.
– We had overtake a role of a person with different status/ handicaps/ problems and show in a form of theater or movement.
– We had to help with general cleaning, taking care of evening program that could make us realize the value of helping/volunteering.”

“It help me get out of my comfort zone though theatre and movement practices”

“I have gained new usefull information that can be aplied in my personal life and studies.”

“During this Erasmus I explored my body’s possibilities.”

“I think the movement and great supportive people there let me to not worry about many things which led me to be more relaxed and in the end even better at communication generally, f.e. confidence, empathy…”

“The most transformative moments were when we danced together, looked into each others eyes and I got to understand more other’s feelings.”

“Diverse communicator created a safe space on which I felt free to , not just talk, but get really engaged on different activities”

“DIVERSE COMMUNICATOR supported the development of these skills especially in educating to do group activities, have fun while learning and make young people take responsibility for their actions (which is so necessary nowadays)”

“Thanks to the program, I got to know other cultures, other people who have great potential. And who have similar views as I do on the world, society.”