According to the project main objective: to design, implement, test and disseminate an effective educational tool, easy to use and decode and able to support youth workers in their daily activities and in their mission to help young people starting their integration path, the project Intellectual output 1 is going to be a kit of comic strips that, coming from a clear understanding of the audience (young new migrants and refugees) will be tailor made specifically to its needs. The kit will be elaborated as a series of short comic strips, through which young new migrants and refugees will be able to improve, by the mean of the youth workers support, their knowledge of the heritage, habits and language of the countries in which they decided to build their future. In planning the IO1, the partners decided to work on very short comics (from three to eight cartoons) to illustrate one single concept/information/idea in each panel. The comic strips will be mainly disseminated by the new media (Facebook as channel of choice) but they will be also collected to form a digital book and will be printed in 160 copies to be distributed during the dissemination labs in youth centers, NGOs and refugee centers and during the multiplier events.
Before start designing and developing the IO1, the project takes off by running three focus groups, one in each partner’ country with the aim to investigate, directly with people working on this field, the best possible strategies to implement the STRIPS.
Here are the transcription of the focus groups
- STRIPS_Focus_Group_Kvinnor – Sweden
- STRIPS_Focus_Group_Bluebook – Italy
- STRIPS_Focus _Group_Integra – Spain
As a result of the focus groups and after a deep brainstorming internal to the STRIPS working team, we decided to work on the following topics:
- cultural codes (both of local people and of migrants)
- habits (both of local people and of migrants)
- intercultural communication
- stereotypes and prejudices
- discrimination factors
In dealing with these topics, we agree it is relevant to pay particular attention to the following elements:
- Identity: we agree we have to show that each person has multiple identities or just one, but complex (e.g. woman, mother, worker, artist, etc.) The identity is changing over time and depends on the context.
- Humanisation of people: we agree we have to show immigrants/refugees like mother, daughters, adolescents… with fears, expectations, problems and dreams (as anyone else).
- Bidirectionality of the process: inclusion is bidirectional. Local people need to make newcomers feel welcome. The newcomers need to learn and respect the culture of the host country. Mutual efforts. Active communication. Solidarity.
These are some of the characters we’re working on…
The Intellectual Output 2 is going to be a guide, in the form of a digital book. It is strictly linked to the Intellectual Output 1 and it represents the knowledge base on which the flexibility and adaptability of the IO1 is founded. According to the main project goal – to design and implement a tool suitable for re-processing and for being used with a wide range of different target profiles, in different contexts and starting from different topics – the guide is a digital book that accompanies youth workers step by step through the process of using comics to communicate, providing examples and case histories. The adopted method will be described as a product development including all the steps involved. The process of creating a comic focused on a specific issue and on a specific target will be broken down into a series of sequential steps. 1. The first step is going to describe the strategies for the analysis of the context, the issues the comic is about, what has to be included in the story, what features to highlight, who is the product for and who is going to read the comic. 2. The second step is going to describe how to create a script. The purpose of this step is to define the progression of the story, the profiles of the characters in the comic, the settings of the story and of the dialogue occuring either by narration or by the characters. 3. The third step is going to describe the layout the comic: how to sequence the story in such a way that readers can follow it. 4. The fourth step will describe how to draw and refine the comic: the finishing touches. This section will also explore the basic drawing techniques and the existing tools to make comic creation easier. This section will also present a range of resources, including drawing software and layout templates, to make the process of creating comics easier and faster. The guide will be translated in each partners language and will be disseminate through the following media: the project website, the partners website, the SALTO platform. It will be also promoted by the social media – Facebook primarily- as well as for the IO1.
