INTERACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR INTEGRATION, SKILLS BARTERING, EMPOWERMENT, INFORMAL LEARNING,

Acronym “ISABEL” 

The Project
 
The project is aimed at using ICT innovative practices such as Citizen Journalism for empowerment of the groups and of communities at social and territorial level, strengthening inter-personal & intercultural links, getting communities talking to each other, promoting personal/collective growth, empowering people to ensure that their voices are heard.
 
An ICT mashing up interactive platform containing Web TV, Blogging, Forum, Social Network will become environment for informal learning, setting up a process in which people belonging to a given community become leaders of social participation & competence exchange (skills bartering) at intergenerational/ intercultural level, the latter resulting in the final product of a multilingual and multicultural Eu Skills e-Portfolio.
 
The project is thus centred in the creation of “Community Reuters and of Community reporting leaders ” who will vehicle the objectives and the activities to the other members involving them in providing local UGC then networking to a wider audience. ISABEL processes will be enacted at different social domains, from disadvantaged communities to university students ones.
 
Experimentation will concern 4 LLP domains and targeted at the specific needs of the concerned communities. E-democracy might be seen as one of the EU common themes to be managed by the local “editorial groups and community reporters”. But there are not links on the themes they will developed since each community has own prioritizing issues.
 
For instance unemployed adults might be keen on reporting on skills and job and dialogue with entrepreneurs. Nevertheless inter-group networking will be extensively promoted at project and EU level. The identified target groups:
Scholastic Community : pupils and teachers
Professional community (social workers, educators and health workers
Immigrants adults and intergenerational community within neighborhood contexts
University Students Comm

Aims and objectives
 
“At first I thought that pod casting was a silly idea. I mean who would want to listen to my woes about not being able to fill in a job application. Then I just found it to be like a friend and actually helped me realize that it was not me being stupid and unemployable and that the forms were the problem” (http://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/community-reporters-program).
 
ISABEL overall objective is to create both a virtual & physical environment where people from different ages, background, health condition find the condition learn reciprocally from one another & reduce their vulnerability.
 
Citizen journalism is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. (source: wiki). ISABEL wants to set up “Community Reuters” through creations of “community editorial boards” and “community reporters”, making of these processes a shared tool for multiple purposes:
 
 
Breaking isolation and marginalization (of elderly, of mentally unhealthy people, of marginal groups) allowing individuals to enhance their social networking and their capability of setting up effective intersubjective relations.
Promoting individual/ group empowerment, socially-oriented informal acquisition processes enhancing potential learning possibilities encouraging self-learning, informal peer learning & competences and e-skills.
Promoting competence exchange processes (skills bartering) promotin, at local, national and project level as well as virtyally and physically intergroup, intercultural, intercommunity and intergenerational dialogue (ie. a black woman is keen on going in Facebook and a young white woman wants to learn to sew)
Contrast digital divide through task based and cooperative based (constructivist) approach, specifically directed at the most disadvantaged.


Who will use these outputs and how
will the consortium reach them?
 
 
Short term target-groups
 
Total vis a vis target: 600 ; Media reached target : 20.000
1) Partner and Associate partner organisation members, in a number of # 40
2) Members of the communities reached by the projects in each of the partner territories:
- Community reporting Leaders: one each group of learners
- School Community members (secondary schools and primary schools) in Turkey, Hungary and Italy 300#
- Disadvantaged adults (mentally ill ) and disadvantaged pupils in Spain (# 40)
- Unemployed adults (men, women and immigrants in a number of #30) and SME representatives in a number of# 20 in Spain
- VET learners, social parts and enterprises in TR (#60)
- Adults and youngster of civil society communities in Italy, addressed by project coordinator in ongoing activities (#50)
- Disadvantaged children and adults within Family Centres in UK (#50)
- Professional staff belonging to the social sector domain (Germany #40)
- Territorial Communities member in Italy (#40)
- University students of the University of Salamanca, in Spain (#40)
3) General population reached by the dissemination activities at local and project level, at least 20.000 contact in
the two years
 
Al the target groups will be reached through the identification of “community lead reporter” that will vehicle the project to the other members. Social networking devices and dissemination deliverable will be used.
Besides:
1. University students are enrolled at the university of Salamanca and will be reached through internal promotion activities.
2. School communities in TR, Hu , IT are currently targeted by these countries’ organisations working activities.
3. Social parts, enterprises and Vet learners will be targeted by OPAL through its network membership and its VET education activities.
4. Disadvantaged mentally ill adults /pupils with special needs, unemployed adults are the subjects addressed by Intras and Documenta in their habitual activities.
5. SME ‘s representatives will be involved by Documenta through personal contact and community reporters.
6. Educators & other professionals addressed by the organisation Perspektive in Germany will be reached through personal contact and advertising.
7. The Partner ABN will reach professionals of the third sector and public health service through personal contact and advertising.
8. Territorial Communities will be reached in the UK ( Mrs & PMV) and in Italy ( ABN) through personal contact and networking.
General population, stakeholders will be reached also connecting the project ‘s social media to communication facilities of the territories.
 
 
 
Long term target groups
 
First of all, long term impact is foreseen via multiplier effect at the community levels and sectors addressed by the project, and this impact is  in terms of group empowerment and group external and internal social networking and communication processes.Long term target groups then include a complex set of social subjects that are suitable to endorse theinnovations set up by the project and to benefit from it. In brief, the project is suitable to have an impact on every organisation that conceives itself as being a system of individuals (a community) whose growth and empowerment both at individual and collective level is seen as a conditio sine qua non for its survival. In other words, the project offers a model, a system of using social media innovatively as empowering tools/ learning devices by exploiting possibilities such as crowdsourcing, relation-building processes, skills bartering,breaking down cultural barriers and creating a sort a virtual bank for developing competences and skills. Long term target groups are all those civil society bodies able to use innovation models to enhance the efficiency and productivity of their work:
a) Associations, NGOs, social groups, informal and formal groups
b) Non profit associations targeted ad social services and facilities & public authorities
c) Educational institutions, Univesities, VET institutions and their targets
Long term target groups will be reached through exploitation and dissemination strategic actions ex ante jointly planned by all partners in the dissemination and communication strategy. Furthermore, they will be reached by multiplier effect an by the foreseen endorsement of the implemented practice at EU level, at the level of the educational domain, SME and non profit sector. Just to give one exemple of endorsement a non profit body could set up a skills bartering process through ICT (ie. a forum) to increase communication dynamics (thus social and intercultural skills) at the level of its human resources and also promoting another kind of relational exchange between the latter and their target clients. A university or a secondary school could set up a forum in which students can develop a dialogic process on their formal learning not only among themselves but also with their educators and such fora could be part of an e-twinning process at EU level.

Ortaklar  / Partners :

Consorzio Abn Italya Semplicitta S.p.a İtalya Fundación INTRAS İspanya The MRS Consultancy Ltd İngiltere University of Salamanca İspanya OPAL Yayıncılık Org. Tic. Ltd. Türkiye

http://www.isabelproject.eu