Educational project focusing on media literacy aimed at children and adolescents in the suburbs of Rome. The project proposes a socio-cultural intervention aimed at raising awareness, empowerment and literacy rates among young people living in the areas involved, characterised by educational poverty, through workshops on audiovisual languages (cinema and photography), film screenings and meetings.

Rome, Italy

TECLA aims at developing an innovative and effective model of social and cultural intervention through an educational program through which to contribute to a general improvement of life conditions and to the increase of the awareness of the target people regarding their own social and cultural conditions. Through an artistic and creative action, the aim is to contribute to curb the phenomenon of educational poverty that afflicts the young people living in the areas involved, to intervene in a virtuous way to counter the phenomenon of school drop-outs, gathering the interest of the target people and by re-harmonising school time with extra-curricular, creating spaces for dialogue and reflection on the relationship between the media and society.

The direct beneficiaries of the project are students aged between 9 and 14 at secondary lower school in the two territories involved. They represent an extremely fragile segment of the population, which lives a delicate and crucial phase of the growth process in a social and cultural context characterised by social and cultural discomfort and educational poverty, inadequate for the correct development of the person, lacking in services and spaces for leisure and aggregation, offering insufficient cultural offer for adolescents living in the area.
DIRECT BENEFICIARIES
Students: 80>120
INDIRECT BENEFICIARIES:
Other students of the Institute: 100>150
Families of the students involved: 50>100
Teachers: 10>15

The project is divided into 3 phases each one linked to 3 specific objectives:

Objective 1: Audiovisual and media literacy
Module 1: Basic literacy
Activity 1.1: audiovisual and media literacy courses: Learners are guided through a basic media literacy course. The paths aim to create a space for reflection shared with the participants on the fundamental principles of language and the way media are represented, with particular reference to audiovisual media.
Activity 1.2: Collective viewing + meetings with professionals and experts.

Objective 2: Social awareness
Module 2: Territorial exploration and mapping
Activity 2.1: Territorial exploration and urban photography workshop: learners carry out multimedia research in the area using various techniques (audiovisual, sound, photography) and instruments through which they can build a pathway to knowledge of the history and characteristics of the history and characteristics of their own territory.

Objective 3: Youth Empowerment
Module 3: Audiovisual Creativity Workshops
Activity 3.1 - Participatory video production workshops: learners will try at making some audiovisual products using participatory methods. Through a process that combines technical and professional training, critical and linguistic skills and collective writing, the learners are involved in a collective creative process.
Activity 3.2 - Final event

The expected results of the project include som qualitative indicators and a set of outputs to be delivered:

QUALITATIVE
to increase the level of awareness of one's own territory
acquiring skills for analysing and reading reality through media languages
bringing young people closer to the world of culture and enhancing their creative skills through audiovisuals
to increase students' involvement by putting them back at the centre of the learning process
to build a virtuous circle of skills, a shared learning space for the educating community.

OUTPUTS
schools involved: 2
public representants reached: 2>4
private NGOs involved: 2>4
funding institutions involved: 2>4
Meetings delivered: 2
Visions: 2
Urban storytelling workshops produced: 4
Audiovisual products produced: 4

The main characteristic of our actions are putting the beneficiary at the centre of the process and making him or her the protagonist of their own educational pathway. We experiment with approaches based on cooperative teaching, emphasising the workshop as a dimension capable of combining creativity, transfer of skills and involvement of the learner in the knowledge process.
The methodology is inspired by participatory principles. Audiovisuals are a practice which stimulate collegiality of work, giving rise to a collective and participatory educational context.
This methodological reversal is the engine capable of intervening in social and cultural balances: our interventions encourage the student to be active and contribute to the breaking down of social and cultural barriers.

Stefano Cipressi. Director, editor, director of photography, cameraman.
Simone Moraldi. PhD in film disciplines, film education specialist, project manager.
Valentina Valente. PhD in audiovisual disciplines, photographer and educator in the field of photography.
Alessandra Di Bartolomeo. Graduated in History of Art, tourist guide at archaeological sites in Rome, guide and expert in museum education.
Greta Scicchitano and Naima Vitale. Graduated in screenwriting, teachers of participatory video.
Over the years we have built a relationship with the communities of the areas in which the project operates. Our previous work on audiovisuals has shown the great transformative power of this medium and we need to give continuity to an intervention already in place in these areas.

coordination/monitoring: 8.400eur
administration: 1.000eur

purchases/rentals: 2.800eur
film rentals: 460eur
consumables: 1.000eur

photographic storytelling workshops: 3.000eur
video production: 12.000eur
post-production: 7.200eur
local visits meetings: 4.000eur

photographic documentation: 1.200eur
communication and graphics: 2.500eur
press office: 2000eur

Let us know what do you think about their project and its strategic asset, if you think our idea could be suitable in your context and in your city or country, we would be very happy to discuss it with such a skilled group of people!