The overall objective of the project was to contribute to overcoming the strong barriers and post-factual trends which currently stand in the way of a social-ecological transformation needed to tackle the present fundamental challenges the EU and the world face with regard to issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, ocean pollution and acidification, and others. It did so by building capacities for intercultural and transformative literacy, develop transformative competencies, and creating serial stories, narrations and narratives to be passed on to the younger generations. The youth workers and young participants understood, reflected, and communicated the complexity of these issues on a global scale, always connecting to their local surroundings. They sought stories and narratives to empower themselves in their role of shaping local, regional, and global societies toward more respectful relationships between humans & nature. They also equipped themselves to take up responsibility for national and European policy-making and strategy-building to show opportunities to take up citizenship toward participatory and inclusive action.
The specific objectives were (1) to develop and produce a transformative series on social-ecological challenges with two seasons, (2) to embed this Relate! Series in a highly dynamic and interactive transmedia learning platform which was designed as openly editable and linked to a variety of social media channels feeding the platform with different formats that constructed the “story universe” of the series. (3) It developed and implemented a methodological framework to capacitate youth workers and young promoters through organic blended learning with a focus oriented toward the future and towards proactive change. The project thus aimed (4) at becoming a catalyst for sensitizing youths towards the youths’ global and local responsibility and local action and goes much beyond traditional methods of capacity building and the production of OER and going beyond crisis management or communicating the apocalypses. The organic learning approach in connection with serial and transmedia storytelling wanted to be the flagship for innovative youth work, modern social entrepreneurship for media use, and social innovation with regard to social-ecological transformation.
The project started in November 2020 and ended in March 2023.
It was funded by Erasmus+ Youth Solidarity Corps and Aid Volunteers Programme and implemented by: KMGNE, ANCE, Miguel Hernández University, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, Fundación EcoMinga and DesarrollosMex – Developments for a Sustainable Future in Mexico.
