VOTING FOR YOUth

Voting for Youth is an international training course that will be held in Laguépie, little village located 100km North East of regional capital Toulouse (France) from the 6th to the 14th of April 2014. It is a project based on physical theatre, street theatre and clown as tools for social development, using methods of non-formal education and that demands an active participation of participants. The main theme throughout the project will be the European Citizenship, the role of young people in the democratic process in their national context and in the European one, in particular VOTING, and how creativity and activism could be an answer to social exclusion. The training is based on practical work. The work will involve theatre workshop, clown, physical work, performance, movement work, team building, training and other theatrical methods. The work will primarily be creative, self reflective, collaborative, and intensive, largely movement and physical based. This training will culminate in a final showcase event in Laguépie to perform the work produced during the week. Using arts from all theatrical media (street theatre, circus, clown, social theatre, performance art, physical theatre, dance) the project aims to bring together a group, which believe in Art as a tool for creating social change in society. Direct outcomes The project will provide practical and theoretical tools to multiply the effects of the training course including the possibility that the new programme Erasmus + will offer to young people and youth associations. The project include a phase of follow up to multiply the effect of the activities of the training course, supporting the participants to develop new projects and new partnerships. Through this project we expect participants to acquire a certain number of competences listed below: - Improve their ability to speak in English as common language of the project - Behave with respect inside a group (not to expansive, not too shy) - Get information about Europe and be able to re-use it in other contexts - Develop a personal and shared concept of citizenship. - Gather ideas and be able to share them and put them into practice - Be able to speak in public, both among a group and before an unknown audience - Get more tolerance towards foreign people, culture and habits and be used to look at them with open-heartedness - Be able to listen to others and to accept different point of views, to be able to discuss and defend one's own opinion - Improve one's self-confidence through body movement and expression. - Be able and confident to act in theatre activities - Be able to participate and create a performance - Become more creative in general - Get inspiration and motivation for further reflection and development of the topic in own life - Knowledge and capacity to use the new European programme Erasmus + - Aacquire competences in project conception - Be more supportive to others in a spirit of solidarity The project is funded by Youth in Action Programme.