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Description
The project aims to continue the experience of the previous project, “Restart your Life & Set Your Mind”, also supported by the Active Citizens programme, EEA-Grants, using different artistic languages as vehicles for human development and personal and social skills. In this sense, the arts assume a transformative and empowering role. The main objectives of the project are to promote the social and professional integration, psychosocial development, and mental health of 40 young people living in the metropolitan area of Porto and students of the Matosinhos Second Opportunity School aged between 15 and 25 years, as well as to enable the promoter to give a better response to its target audience.
Summary of project results
As a pedagogical framework, the Second Chance Education model aims to contribute to reducing early school leaving, promoting qualifications and the social, educational and professional integration of young people. The aim of this project is to develop this educational methodology in the areas of psychosocial development, individualised pedagogical approaches that are flexible and negotiated with the student and which interact with each other through artistic expressions.
In recent years, the Escola de Segunda Oportunidade de Matosinhos (Matosinhos Second Chance School) has specifically prioritised artistic and vocational tools as its strategic lines of intervention, promoting specialised workshops in the areas of theatre, dance, music and visual arts (artistic), small repairs, cooking and mechanics (vocational). Inspired by the experience and partnership established in 2019 with the Norwegian Hyssingen School, along with the Restart your Life & Set Your Mind (RESET) project (no. 252925), this artistic-pedagogical articulation work has proved extremely pertinent in making a positive contribution to reducing the problem of early school leaving, creating conditions for the social integration of young people, through their active participation in building life changes, empowering individuals and the surrounding communities. The aim of this project is to continue this line of artistic-vocational intervention, but in more effective articulation with the social networks.
The METAMORPHOSIS project supported the social integration of 51 young people (target:40) from the Matosinhos Second Chance School, aged between 15 and 25, in a particularly vulnerable economic situation and with low schooling and qualification levels, through the use of different artistic languages as vehicles for human and psychosocial development. The main instrument for this was the dynamisation of artistic expression workshops aimed at stage arts and communicative and interpersonal skills. Two shows were performed: one session f the show: Eu sou Infinito (I am the Infinite); and four sessions of the show As crianças que já fui –(The Children that I used to be) which reached more than 450 people.
The project reported that 13 young people began work experience through the support provided by the project team.
As part of the training, 19 professionals received 50 hours of training in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and produced a Procedures Manual with a guide to organising and running the school and the association. The organisation also reported that the dynamics of the project required weekly team meetings in which the need for greater communication and coordination between all the professionals was identified, which resulted in the creation of simple but effective organisational communication strategies and tools such as: weekly plans; institutional emails; whatsapp group; drive to share activities and respective evidence.
The beneficiaries had the opportunity to experiment with various means of artistic expression and explore other ways of relating to the world and their emotions. They participated in collective and individual construction processes, realizing ideas and restructuring their self-concept and self-esteem, crucial factors for an active life and greater social integration. In this sense, the arts have taken on a transformative role and boosted quality of life, providing young people with a place of creation where the main artistic product has been themselves.
With this project, young people strengthened their mental health and changed their lifestyles through the design and implementation of artistic and vocational workshops that considered young people as active agents in their transformation processes. The project involved key players from the private sector, associations, cooperatives and local decision-makers in the young people''s transition to working life, bringing the products resulting from the project to them in public artistic presentations that generated conversations afterwards. In addition, these artistic expression workshops developed in the project have demonstrated the transformative potential of artistic expressions and manual activities in the processes of transition to adulthood, better prospects for the future in terms of life projects and professional integration.