Tell me about it -stories building belonging and democratic integration (TELL)

P4 Skilled and socially inclusive region

4.1. More people benefiting from stronger Central Baltic communities

Central Baltic

01.04.2019 - 31.03.2021

266.567 EUR

199.925 EUR ERDF

For minority groups and immigrants, access to the labour market is often quite challenging. The project promotes young immigrants’ integration and aims at preventing the social exclusion of young immigrants aged 16-29 in Kotka, Finland, and Uppsala, Sweden.
 
Story-telling is a way to improve young immigrants’ self-expression and to provide them with the necessary skills to engage with society and to build transcultural trust. To achieve this goal, the project organizes workshops based on cultural and artistic methods as well as Human rights and democracy –games. The young immigrants' integration stories will be collected through culture and art methods such as theatre performances, rap lyrics, comics or videos. The success factors of the integration process will be analysed, published and disseminated further in immigrant communities.
 
The social capital resulted from the project is estimated to improve young immigrants’ participation in the education system and the labour market. This will, in turn, strengthens the ties between young immigrants and the society they have emigrated to.

Lead Partner

Kaakkois-Suomen ammattikorkeakoulu

Country: FI

https://www.xamk.fi/en/

Partner budget: 203.567 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 152.675 EUR ERDF

Project Partners

Folkuniversitetet stiftelsen kursverksamheten vid Uppsala universitet

Country: SE

http://www.folkuniversitetet.se/uppsala

Partner budget: 63.000 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 47.250 EUR ERDF

Expected results

Achieved results

Project result in category -
Improved community

TELL improved social inclusion among young immigrants

During its implementation, the TELL project organised workshops for young immigrants aged between 16-29. These workshops focused on storytelling or using a game called Human rights and democracy. In storytelling workshops, successful integration stories were shared using narrative methods, whereas the game-focused workshops aimed to evoke discussions about different rules, rights and manners of a new country. The latter deployed cultural and artistic methods. Additionally to project target groups, the methodology was partly tested through information exchange between project partners.
 
Throughout implementation, positive stories of belonging and engaging in the society as well as mutual understanding and building transcultural trust, were emphasised. In total, 90 young immigrants participated in project activities.