Play, watch, learn, fight. Leveraging culture for equality

Play, watch, learn, fight. Leveraging culture for equality is funded by ENAR Foundation within the ENAR Empowerment and Resilience Fund.

It isn’t a single project, but a set of activities that are part of different projects and/or programmes, unified by the goal of countering the growing process of otherisation targeting minority communities at large and migrants in particular. The main strands are:

1. Play Ethic

Play Ethic aims to exploit the powerful playful-narrative dynamics of role-playing games, exploring their educational value and potential as an immersive and collective cultural practice and social reflection, stimulating relationships, empathy and curiosity. This project involved various initiatives, such as:

• From 30th January 2023 until 5th July 2023, Altera opened the Call for Adventures titled “Play Ethic. Imagine and play the challenges of our time”, which had a specific strand on intersectionality. Two of the adventures received were awarded: Exodus written under the patronage of SOS Méditerranée and focused on migration, and Sono solo maschere (It’s Just Masks) focused on prisons and interpersonal relationships. On 9th and 10th September 2023 during TOPlay, a manifestation about board games and role play games, there were two days of workshops, aimed at social workers and activists of cultural, educational and community associations. They included both conferences, debates, actual playing, and reflection in small groups and plenary on the cognitive and empathic process activated by the game among players as a whole and female players in particular, as well as on the relationship between game and social reality. Roleplay games experts, activists and facilitators were involved;
• on 18^th December 2023, Altera organized a workshop together with SOS Méditerranée: the participants had the opportunity to play the adventure Exodus and to discuss the thematic of migration at the end of the session. The same thing was done on 24^th and 25^th February 2024 at GrugliascoPlay, the festival of roleplaying and board games held in Grugliasco city (in the province of Turin). Here we also brought Sono solo maschere, which was played together with its writers and inventors;
• a collection of the best adventures / stories is going to be freely available in the next months as a digital publication, on the websites of Altera and partner organizations. The adventures selected are the 5 winners of our two Calls for Adventures (2021 and 2023), to which are added some adventures which are worthy for how they handled the topics requested. In this collection, each adventure is integrated with a presentation, an eventual trigger warning, and a specific evaluation of one or more activists who are committed on the adventure’s specific topic. The texts were fully reviewed, and the editing was held by a graphic designer.

For further information you can visit Play Ethic’s official website: https://playethic.org/.

 

2. Words of Europe

The project called Words of Europe aims at encouraging EU citizens, and particularly young citizens and those belonging to marginalized groups, to participate in and contribute to the democratic life of the Union. To this aim, it offers resources such as safe spaces for sharing and debating ideas as well as tools and skills to understand the issues and disseminate suggestions, proposals and recommendations. This project involved various public initiatives, such as:

• from May to October 2023 took place various participatory meetings on the European institutions (functioning, history of EU integration, founders) focusing on: – the Founding Mothers: Louise Weiss, Ursula Hirschmann, Marga Klompé, Nicole Fontaine, Nilde Iotti, Simone Veil, Sofia Corradi. – the transition, and failures of, from an economic, market driven area to a space of justice, security and freedom. – the different forms of democratic participation. During these months, Altera held 6 meetings overall: on 12th and 18th May, 14th, 21st and 28th July, and 14th September;
• between November and December 2023, Altera held with its partners two online workshops focused on tackling fake news about the EU: a transnational event on 20^th November and a national event on 19^th December;
• on 30th November 2023 took place a meeting during which the participants created a participatory method which uses art as a means of citizenship advocacy. On 18^th April 2024 Altera tested the method organizing a collage workshop. This brought up a list of questions which are going to be sent to the candidates to EU Parliament elections.

For further information you can visit Words of Europe official website: https://www.wordsofeurope.eu/.

 

3. IF (Imparare Facendo, i.e. learning by doing) Summer School and Civil Service Volunteers and Interns Training

Altera’s staff includes a small number of young people carrying out civil service, and a specific training programme, open also to volunteers and trainees, was provided about:

a) Organization of cultural events – Necessary functions (coordination, organizational secretariat, logistics, communication, administration); – technical and logistical needs for different types of events (film screenings, talks, exhibitions, etc.): copyright, public permits, installations, etc. – management of live events: planning and technical services, direction of technical installations. – Organizing training events: learning process management;

b) Third sector, social promotion and culture from below – Different forms of civic engagement: social promotion, advocacy, philanthropy, good lobbyism, combating discrimination, etc. – Social planning and impact assessment; non-formal education. Cultural and social planning: design methods: Project Cycle Management; analysis of calls (European programs, local funding, etc.); draw up a project to apply to a call (from context analysis to budget); monitoring and evaluation of the project (in progress, final). The management of a cultural space: daily organization and programming; management of spaces and human resources; economic sustainability;

c) Hate speech and discrimination – Definitions, general context, key concepts (the pyramid of hatred, intersectionality, etc.), outline of the reference legislation;

d) Organize awareness-raising events, online and in person. – The necessary functions (coordination, organizational secretariat, logistics, communication, administration) and the management of an event in progress. – Technical and logistical needs for different types of events such as flash mobs, theater of the oppressed etc.: inspections, public permits, set-ups etc. – Technical and logistical needs for online events; – methods of conduction and facilitation and participation techniques for online events.

For these trainings Altera arranged different moments and settings:

• IF Summer School took place from 5th to 8th September 2023. Participants learned all the skills needed for the organization of cultural events, and used them to ideate and organize one event focused on antidiscrimination. On 11st October the documentary Questo spazio può essere tuo (A. Bernard, ITA, 2023, 73’) was screened, and it was preceded by a debate focused on art as a means of antidiscrimination, and its link with technology. In summary, IF Summer School and its final event focused on: a) Organization of cultural events d) Organize awareness-raising events, online and in person. For further information you can visit the dedicated page on our website ;
• on 28th June 2023 Civil Service volunteers participated in the film screening of Gli anni amari (Andrea Adriatico, ITA, 2019, 112’) followed by a debate. For further information you can visit the dedicated page on our website;
• on the next day, 29th June 2023, Àltera arranged a meeting with Simone Zito, who talked about his experience of discrimination within the school where he used to work;
• on 8th October 2023, Civil Service volunteers took part to the project called “Borgo Dora non discrimina, accoglie e crea reti” (Borgo Dora – the quarter in Turin where CasArcobaleno is located – doesn’t discriminate, it welcomes people and creates networks): they ideated and participated to a non-formal education activity with Arcigay, in order to produce a video about anti-discrimination. At this link you can find the video on our YouTube profile ;
• one of the Civil Service volunteers also proposed and organised in partnership with Arcigay the film screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on 11st November 2023. For further information you can visit the dedicated page on our website;
• from January 2024 IF – Imparare Facendo was implemented with the creation of IF Master: a project which summarizes all the topics held in many years of activity, structured as a master’s degree. On 02^nd March the trainer was Ayoub Moussaid, an activist who spoke about activism, participation and active citizenship through the lenses of antiracism. On 7^th April the trainer was Emanuele Russo, former president of Amnesty International Italy, who spoke about hate speech. For further information you can visit the dedicated page on our website;
• on 21^st March 2024 (International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) Àltera took part to the initiative Against Racism – Insieme contro le discriminazioni (i.e. together against discriminations) in partnership with other NGOs such as Mediterranea Saving Humans. Together with Civil Service volunteers was organized the film screening of the documentary After the Bridge. For further information you can visit the dedicated page on our partner’s website.