Description
The project ”Give Some Color to Your School!” has been developed by the Komunitas Association in order to promote human rights education through participative art in schools in Romania. In schools and high schools from Romania, human rights education and democratic citizenship is formally nonexistent, one hour per week of civic education, a few lessons with specific topics or 1-2 extra-curricular activities per year being totally insufficient in order to make significant changes in skills and attitudes among young people. The project aims at creating an innovative pilot programme of participative art in the form of mural paintings in which 105 young people, 7 teachers in 7 schools in Romania and 7 artists will work together in participative artistic projects that express democratic values, various cultures and perspectives. The project proposes innovative education tools in form of participative mural art on human rights topics, in 7 Romanian schools. 7 educational institutions with a better environment, 105 students with civic participation skills developed will benefit from the project, as well as 20 teachers who will be trained in this field.
Summary of project results
"Give some colour to your school!" project aimed at promoting human rights education through participative art in schools in Romania, in a context in which the promotion of democratic values is hardly embedded in the current educational policies. The project aimed and succeeded in creating an innovative pilot programme, training around 150 participants (young people, teachers, artists, volunteers) in human rights education combined with participative art (mural painting). All beneficiaries worked together in a participatory approach, in order to improve the school environment through big mural paintings having civic messages, related to democratic values, various cultures and perspectives. The long term goal of the project was to start a process of school transformation, through creative urban art, nonformal education and by directly involving students in the activities. In order to achieve this goal, the project activities were: 21 human rights education workshops; 21 artistic education workshops; 7 participative mural paintings; 1 workshop for teachers interested in developing such projects; delivering good practices, written and visual materials (1 documentary film, 1 book, 1 set of recommendations). The project also had an organisational development component - creating a fundraising and a public communication department. The impact of the activities on its beneficiaries was a huge one, most of the children involved stating it was one of the most powerful projects they were ever involved in, with profound personal development achievements. The participative mural painting with civic messages methodology, which was created within the project, was also a premiere in Romania, thus giving the start for a future national educational and artistic programme. In this sense, the promoter has initiated discussions with representatives of public institutions and authorities. There are chances that the project will be included in the Cultural Development Strategy of Bucharest city, for the following years.
Summary of bilateral results