Requalification and re-education of citizens on the space where they live in are last challenge in the urban areas of Padua and Vicenza. Team work will operate with innovative instruments: community planning, Migrantour, cultural events and group facilitation to aim a new and inclusive vision in the neighborhood seen as a degraded area with the participation of groups before excluded such us: migrants, students, dwellers.

Padua and Vicenza, Veneto Region, Northern Italy

Public administrations tried to face the state of abandonment of the train Station area, but they weren’t able to start a truly bottom-up process, so urban regeneration process remains on the surface without a genuine participation of all citizens. The exclusion of a large part of the actors, including migrants, students and civil societies hasn’t solved the sense of security and doesn’t bring concrete results. Through culture and MigranTour our project wants to create an alternative vision carried out by the actor previously excluded and wants to facilitate dialogue to go beyond racial prejudices between different generations, and to enhance the contribution of migration and diversity. In the end, this project aims to involve and provide new instruments to non-privileged groups.

Our Project will focus on different target groups:
1. People living in the area;
2. Community of migrants citizens;
3. People who meet at the station area
4. Informal groups of citizens committed in the neighborhood;
5. High school and university students;
6. Migrants and foreign citizens welcome in the project managed by the proposing association;
7. Urban Regeneration experts

These activities will be proposed in Padua and Vicenza.
WP1: Set up of working-group and programming of activities. WP2: Definition of Communication campaign. WP3: Lunch event in Padua and Vicenza (Nadir Aps in Padua and Caracol in Vicenza) to pull participants aside. WP4: Workshop and Participatory training for the construction of itineraries (Il Sestante, Xena, Pampas, ACRA). Workshop will follow these course modules: - Intercultural communication and use of expressive languages (acting, fairy tale, music, arts); migration history; individual and collective storytelling; facilitation of groups and multicultural meetings; geography of the emotion (construction of intercultural urban itineraries); tutoring for intercultural junior guides. WP5: Discover the city. – Intercultural walks offered by and with the testimony of migrants and asylum seekers lead by junior and senior guides with the involvement of inhabitants of the neighbourhood. - Sound walk: a free workshop led by an experienced sound artist to explore the sound universe of the area through digital stereo recording. The reworking of the sounds will be the basis for the creation of original musical works, offered to the city through posters, web, performance (Nadir APS). -Participation at public events organized by associations already active in the area and return feedback project to citizens.

1. Overcoming the risk perception of the area and boost the dialogue with associations and network arise to fight the sense of urban insecurity;
2. Arise the knowledge of the neighborhood and spread a new vision of the area in the citizens;
3. Starting cultural paths and extend the network in the local community with the engagement of people with different background;
4. At least 15 of participants to walks and workshops declare of having increased their sense of belonging to the community;
5. 4000 inhabitants and local dwellers are provided with competences and knowledge to deal with cultural differences.

Migrantour has been selected among more than 300 civic engagement initiatives by Fondazione Italia Sociale as one of the best practices enabling access to cultural life and maintaining intercultural social experiences in times of travel restrictions and social distancing. The project aims at promoting citizens active participation in society overall through intercultural urban walks. The intervention wants to enhance Migrantour walks as meant of civic engagement for local dwellers and tool to develop a new narrative on urban cohesion. The experiences of cultural associations involved in the project network show that culture can be transformed into a privileged instrument to activate the community and to promote more cohesive and supportive life contexts to revitalize urban environment.

Il Sestante, lead organisation, since 25 years has been working on Community Development, social and urban requalification, integration and welcome of marginalized people with a specific focus on foreign citizens and asylum seekers. Our network is composed by: Xena: working on group facilitation and leading participatory planning; Nadir: working on realize cultural paths with performing art to improve the regeneration of the area through culture; Migrantour network who includes 20 civil society organisations in 10 EU countries and more than 20 cities involved; Pampas: is a cultural NGO in Vicenza which implements social initiatives aiming at requalifying the area and re-educating citizens on the space they live in. We’re certain new vision is possible even in these degraded areas.

Personnel costs:
• Workshops: € 10.000,00
• Coordination: € 6.000,00
• Public events: € 6.000,00
• Administration costs: € 2.000,00

Office/Workshop expenses: € 4.000,00
Communication campaign: € 5.000,00
Travel costs: € 1.000,00