ISABEL. – Interactive Social Media for Integration. Skills Bartering. Empowerment. Informal Learning
CALL: DG EAC/41/09
LENGTH: 24 months
STARTING DATE: December 2010
RESOLUTION NUMBER: 511858-LLP-1-2010-1-IT-KA3-KA3MP
www.isabelproject.eu
1. PARTNERS
Promoter entity
Consorzio ABN, Italia
Partner entities
Semplicittà S.p.a., Italy
The Mrs Consultancy Ltd., United Kingdom
University of Salamanca (USAL), Spain
OPAL YAYINCILIK ORGANIZASYON VE TICARET LIMITED ŞIRKETI, Turkey
DOCUMENTA, Spain
INTRAS Foundation, Spain
PERSPEKTIVwechsel – Institut für Bildung und Beratung, Germany
People’s Voice Media, United Kingdom
Artemisszió Alapítvany –Artemisszió Foundation (ARTEMISSZIÓ), Hungary
2. SUMMARY
This project seeks to employ innovative practices of TIC, like citizen journalism in order to strengthen groups and communities both at social and territorial level. In doing so, social and intercultural links are strengthened, promoting communication among communities, making possible personal and collective growth and letting people know that their voices will be heard. An interactive platform of fusion/crossbreeding/blending (mashing up) that will be fitted with Internet TV, blogs, forums, social networks, etc. All these features will serve as an informal learning environment, setting up a process in which people who belong to a community become leaders in social participation and exchange of skills both at intercultural and intergenerational levels, resulting in a final communal e-Portfolio of multilingual and multicultural skills.
Therefore, the project focuses on the creation of a “Reuters Community and a leaders-informers/reporters Community” who will transfer aims and activities for other members to be involved and provide them local UGC. At the same time, they will also be working on the internet in order to reach a wider audience. ISABEL initiative will be presented on different social milieus, from different disadvantaged groups to university student associations. The test will include 4 lifelong learning domains and will address specific needs of the groups involved. Virtual democracy should be seen as one of the communal thematics to be managed by “publishing groups and reporters of the area”. However, there are no links among those topics broadly promoted at the project level and the UE.
3. AIMS
The broad aim of ISABEL is to create both a physical and a virtual environment in which people of different ages, with different forms of knowledge, health conditions, find a reciprocal way of learning, thus reducing their vulnerability. Citizen journalism is a concept of members of the group that plays an active role in the process of data collection, information, analysis and dissemination of news and information. According to the seminar celebrated in 2003, we, the media, inform: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information.
ISABEL seeks to establish “collective editing tables” and “reporters/informers”. Consequently, some points are pursued to meet those requirements:
1. Breaking down isolation and marginalization of older people, the mentally ill or marginal groups, letting individuals improve their social network and their abilities to establish strong links
2. Individual and collective empowerment promotion, which leads to an informal acquisition of processes in order to facilitate self-learning, informal learning among peers as well as digital skills
3. Promoting exchange of skills enhancing communication among groups, cultures, communities and generations both locally and internationally (for instance, a black woman is very interested in connecting with Facebook and a white woman wants to learn how to sew)
4. Digital contrast divides through cooperation tasks based on a constructivist approach, mainly shifted to the most excluded people.
4. TARGET AUDIENCE
Identified social groups are:
– School community: pupils and teachers.
– Professional community (social workers, educators and healthcare professionals)
– Adult immigrants and intergenerational communities in a day-to-day context
– University students associations
