What does the word stranger means?Is that a matter of birth place?Nationality?Culture?Conditions? We'll ask those questions to the young people belonging to the foreigner communities of the city. They will be participants of a radical change of mind, sharing their experiences that will be collected in a film, a book, a radio broadcast and an exhibition and recommending solutions in a UN simulation to start handling local issues and actively contributing to a sustainable development of their city

Castelfranco Emilia is a small city in the Emilia Romagna plain, made up of multi-ethnic communities

The citizens of Castelfranco Emilia are used to move everyday towards the nearby cities of Modena and Bologna, where most of them work and study, and do not feel a sense of belonging to their community. The project main goal is to involve young people belonging to the different communities (from Southern Italy, Romania, Morocco, Albania India, etc) and create connections between different cultures and traditions, that seem to be divided and sometimes yet against each other, although they coexist on the territory for decades.
Starting from the concept of “stranger” broadly speaking, thorny issues such as immigration, racism, xenophobia, fear of diversity will be addressed, in order to overcome labels and prejudices, through dialogue, listening, participation, understanding.

The target groups of the project are the young people from the communities of foreign origins. We’ll reach them thanks to school and sport networks and through the association fabric, give them the chance to share stories and experiences, and collect together some food for thought on gender and cultural identity, social inclusion and similar issues.
Since it’s usually hard to involve into these projects adults and elder people we believe that addressing young people will automatically reach their family networks, triggering some reflections and curiosity upon these subjects and so increasing the amount of beneficiaries.

Phase I
Action 1-2:collection of stories and experiences; creation of a website and social networks to constantly update on the implementation stages.
Action 3: Radio Ex.Stra, a web radio with a one-hour podcast every 15days (16 podcasts totally) with traditional music, interviews, follow-up meetings.
Phase II
Action 4: research and making of the docu-film “Ex.Stra”, that will explain the whole project.
Action 5-6: photo exhibition on the project; presentation of the book Ex.Stra
Phase III
Action 7: United Nation of the Youth in Castelfranco Emilia. As a legacy of the project, this panel will collect all the actors of the project that will simulate an international congress, discussing every six months upon some of the SDG’s oriented to the local reality.

If the project will be selected it will give a great hand in the building of the future lines of action on social cohesion and inclusion issues, based on the collective reflections emerged throughout the project. The whole citizenship, the civil society organizations, associations and intermediate bodies are among the beneficiaries of the project that through the eye of the young generations aims to become the main basis for many of the future action on these themes. The experiment of setting up a UN of the Youth has the goal of leaving a tangible mark of the work run and giving young people instruments to influence the local governance by exposing their points of view.

The project Ex.Stra draws a strong relation between citizenship, civil society organizations, associative world, creates the conditions to make up actions lasting over time, and lays the foundations for a pacific and inclusive society, with special regarf to equality between citizens and gender equality
All the people involved will have a listening space, where to tell their own experiences and communicate their needs, and learn through this shared path to listen to other people needs, in order to reach some awareness and become able to understand and think of solutions sharable and useful for the whole community.

The answer is in the title itself “Ex.Stra”, full of multiple meanings. The first is related to the condition of “ex stranger”, hopefully sharable among all the beneficiaries, at the end of this path. The main goal and positive effect for the participants is to get rid of any label that made them feel foreigner and start feeling part of a united, cohesive, supportive, equal, open-minded community. Another significant meaning of the project is its extraordinary nature. Extraordinary will be the final result, from the point of view of the human material, of the cultural baggage of stories and experiences collected and shared. Extraordinary will be the effort of all the citizens involved, for the good success of the many activities to put in place, that will require everyone their own piece.

- Documentary (interviews, meetings, direction, screenplay, sound technicians, make up, music, editing, insurances, other expenses): euro 23.000 EUR
- Web site and social media management: euro 3.000 EUR
- Web Radio: euro 3.000 EUR
- Exhibition design and set up: euro 4.000 EUR
- Printing of materials: euro 2.000 EUR
- Book publication: 5.000 EUR
- Coordinating board: euro 5.000 EUR
- United Nation of the Youth (materials, technical costs, administrative costs, management): 5.000EUR

We are glad to receive any suggestion or feedback so as to improve our project.