Into Europe

Il progetto mira a combattere la stigmatizzazione degli immigrati e a decostruire la visione del fenomeno migratorio promossa dai movimenti populisti e diffusa attraverso i social media.

Il propagarsi del sentimento anti-europeo è alimentato da un circolo vizioso di insicurezza e paura prodotto soprattutto dalla crisi economica e dalla cosiddetta ‘crisi migratoria’.

Gli sforzi compiuti dalle istituzioni dell’UE e dalle organizzazioni democratiche della società civile per migliorare il dialogo e la comunicazione non sembrano sufficienti a fermare questo processo: la paura sociale e la sfiducia nella democrazia portano molti cittadini ad aderire a movimenti populisti, razzisti e regressivi antieuropei.

La narrativa sull’Europa proposta dai movimenti populisti e dai media, insieme all’assenza di legami diretti tra i cittadini e l’UE, rendono molto difficile invertire questa tendenza.

Attività principali del progetto:

Nell’ambito del progetto si sono costituiti due gruppi di cittadini per paese partner – per un totale di otto gruppi di cittadini – che hanno coinvolto almeno 25 persone ciascuno. Ogni gruppo è stato costituito da persone “comuni” che hanno rappresentato diverse categorie di uomini e donne: studenti, lavoratori, pensionati, migranti, rappresentanti dell’amministrazione locale, accademici e attivisti sociali. Si è cercato di prevedere una partecipazione quanto più possibile diversificata, avendo particolare attenzione all’equilibrio di genere e al coinvolgimento di persone che, per il loro ruolo, potessero fungere da “moltiplicatori”, come insegnanti di scuola e università, allenatori sportivi, operatori dei media (blogger, giornalisti dei media locali …).

Gli otto gruppi di cittadini, coordinati da un / una group leader, hanno lavorato in parallelo nelle rispettive città, seguendo una metodologia unica e condivisa volta a:

1. stimolare la comprensione delle politiche europee e nazionali di integrazione dei migranti in relazione alla diffusione di movimenti razzisti, reazionari e antieuropei, grazie agli interventi di esperti e al dibattito tra i partecipanti.
2. sollecitare i cittadini a esprimere le proprie opinioni e posizioni, porre domande, confrontarsi l’un l’altro e con gli esperti presenti.
3. decostruire la visione stereotipata e stigmatizzante della migrazione e costruire una contro-narrativa positiva sul futuro dell’Europa, producendo elementi per una campagna europea comune da attuare nell’ultima fase del progetto.

Description of the activities (in English)

The project « Into Europe. Rebuilding a positive European narrative» was funded

with the support of the European Union under the Programme “Europe for Citizens”

Applicable to the Strand 2 – Measure 2.3 “Civil Society Projects”

10 events have been carried out within this project:

Event 1 – Kick-off Meeting in Rome

Participation: The event involved the project coordinators (7 people) from the city of Seville, Madrid, Paris and Bucharest and Rome

Location / Dates: The event took place in Rome (Italy) from 18/04/2018 to 18/04/2018

Short description: The aim of the event was to structure the project’s objectives within a common metodologie for all partners. Activities and deadlines were clarified and agreements between members were established.

Event 2 – Italian National Activities – Palermo

Participation: The event involved 40 citizens from the following Member States: Spain, Greece, France, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Estonia, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic. Moreover, approximately 10 articipants from Turkey, Egypt, Mali, Morocco, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia took also part to the event.

Location / Dates: The event took place in Palermo (Italy) on 11/10/2018

Short description: The aim of the event was to have a first public presentation of the IntoEurope/Out of Prejudice project and campaign. The meeting has been the occasion for a fruitful exchange among sicilians citizens, participants attending the Sabir Festival in Palermo and project partners on the european political policies and on the main rumors identified by citizens in the partners’ countries. The fact to be based in Palermo has been the way to increase citizens’ understanding of Europan and National Migrants’ integration policies in relation to the spreading of racist, reactionary and Anti-European movements, developping a positive counter narrative on the Future of Europe rebuilt looking at the electoral appointment.

Event 3 – Italian National Activities – Rome

Participation: The event involved 30 citizens, including participants from the cities of Brussels (Belgium) and Frankfurt (Germany).

Location / Dates: The event took place in Rome (Italy) on May 10th 2019

Short description: The aim of EuDream event was to promote in the run-up to the European elections in an attempt to rebuild the European dream, starting with the reaffirmation of the leading role played by the men and women of Europe in exalting the principle of active citizenship, which, although it does not exhaust itself in the elections alone, is able to seize in them an important tool for choice and change. The citizens attending the event, thanks to the participation of representatives of main european networks – such as the European Civic Forum, Culture Action Europe and Solidar – recived a deeply training on the Future of Europe a week before key election and on EU challenges in anti-european contexte

Event 4 (series of events) – Creation of citizens’s groups in Pau, Tulle and Poitiers (France)

Participation: The creation of citizens’ groups and events in the three cities involved overall 41 citizens, including participants from the city of Pau, Taulle e Poitiers (France)

Location / Dates: The series of events took place in Pau, Tulle and Poitiers (France) in December 2018 The 3 events have registered an high participation of young people and a majority of women. The main meetings’ goal was to exchange about migration(s) starting from main stereotypes and prejudice on this topic and how destroy them. The activities with citizens start working on representations, stereotypes and prejudice on migration going forward an understanding on connexions between representations, stereotypes and prejudice and discrimination. Once identified the rumors and the counter-narrative slogan Ligue de l’Enseignement also shared the « rumours’ campaign » with all 12 federations of the association.

Event 5 – Citizens’ group in Alcala de Henares

Participation: The event involved 29 citizens, including participants from the city of Madrid, Valencia, Jaen, Sevilla, Zamora, Valladolid, Caceres and Palencia (Spain)

Location / Dates: The event took place in Alcala de Henares (Spain), from 30/06/2018 to 01/07/2018 The aim of this 2-day-meeting was to increase Spanish citizens’ understanding of European and national migrants’ integration policies in relation to the racist, reactionary and anti-European movements. It was a 2- day long activity, composed of a lecture (‘Coexistence and citizenship against xenophobic discourse in Europe’) and an INTOEurope seminar, on the 30th June and 1st July 2018. The seminar was entitled ‘Tools to fight xenophobic discourse in Europe’ and had the purpose of creating a counter-narrative.

Event 6 – Citizens’ group in Seville

Participation: Two events were realised with the citizens’ group of Sevilla, involving 31 citizens

Location / Dates: The 2 events took place in Seville the 21 February 2019 and 7 June 2019 The aim of the 2 events – focus on the relation between citizenship and Employment – have been to debate around the ways of real participation in the labor market of citizenship, the ability not only to access a job, but the citizenship being the protagonist of their own professional and labor process, and also about their participation in employment from the collaboration with companies or from their own work development on their own. In this line, the development of the collaborative social economy had a very important role in the debate, establishing itself as the way that greater guarantees and security gives to citizenship. The second event was carried out addressed to degree Psychopedagogy Faculty students. The event addressed to 22 students was a group discussion about the personal, professional and citizen role of each on regarding labor market and employment. The discussion was energized by roles per small group like labor market, enterprises, public labor agency, social entities and professional. The main approach was the main approaches were opposite positions regarding the need and contributions of other agents included in the labor market system, it means, each agent defended their own self-interest distrusting the other. During the final group conclusion, it was concluded that this is a common world vision which they believe and fear. The final common discussion was addressed about how as citizens and future professional they will be able to build their own ways and their own world vision enhancing the mutual collaboration and improving the labor market conditions as common citizenship space of coexistence

Event 7 – Citizens’ group in Bucharest

Participation: The event involved 110 citizens from the city Bucharest, Iasi, Timisoara, Botosani, Zalau, Cluj Napoca, Braila, Galati and other small cities from Romania.

Location / Dates: The event took place in Bucharest, Romania – Deputy Chamber, from 19.10.2018 to 21.10.2018

Short description: The aim of the event was to promote the civic participation at Parliament Level, to understand the role and function of Romanian Parliament. During this event the APD team has Promoted the project Intoeurope and explaine about the stereotypes and prejudice regarding migrants. To be more empathic to those who need and not to judge. During event we disseminate stickers with logo of project IntoEurope. In this case over110 participants and volunteer from more 10 cities from Romania have been informed about Intoreurope project and about the stereotypes and prejudice regarding migrants.

Event 8 – Second citizens’ group in Bucharest

Participation: The event involved 28 citizens, including participants from the city of Bucharest (Romania)

Location / Dates: The event took place in Bucharest, Romania – National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, on 12 November 2018

Short description: The aim of the event was Citizen’s group meeting to discuss and to identify together the rumors regarding stereotypes and prejudice. The main issue was to discuss about “What stereotypes we have about migrants”. The event took place at National School of Political Studies and Public Administration with students of political science were they were people of different ages between 19 – 50. During the event APD team has presented the project and the purpose of the IntoEurope Campaign. The main speaker was Claudiu Craciun the lector at NSPSPA (SNSPA) were he tried to animate the debate with concrete examples regarding the Situation of immigrants and refugees in Romania and Romania’s position on the situation of refugees. After that, Iuliana Iliescu the project coordinator from APD partner, presented the participants with a number of situations related to the refugee crisis to see what information the participants know. Finally, he presented the situation at the level of Romania and finalized the rumors related to the refugees and what is the Romanian perception of this subject. In the end, the participants were informed about rumors and how to act against prejudice. Also, they have been informed about the EU annual budget for security and citizenship which include also the budget for asylum, migration, and integration category.

Event 9 – International Meeting in Lecce

Participation: The event involved directly 140 European citizens, indirectly the 2000 participants to the Sabir festival, coming from more than 15 different European Countries and approximately 5% from 5 South Mediterranean countries.

Location / Dates: The event took place in Lecce in the framework of Sabir Festival from May 16 to May 19 2019 The final event of IntoEurope organized in the framework of Sabir 2019 was the occasion to make the final public presentation of the main result of the counter-narrative campaign, presented with others hate-speech campaigns coordinated by ARCI and the partners. Six high school classes have been involved in the meeting, who brought testimonies and stories. One class, especially, developed a real project, producing: a song, a poem, a video and a murales, as documented in a video interview. The young people demonstrated their thoughts on the meaning of IntoEurope and therefore of the project. The video-record of the Final International meeting is available here: https://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/574561/festival-sabir-incontro-internazionale-into-europe-out-ofprejudices?fbclid=IwAR1XtFpL1PwE7-VCs-zgwYj0C78qAxdgRaXCJWyvuHO928gPaNDvodLaHA0

Event 10 – Counter Narrative Campaign: IntoEurope – Out of Prejudices

Participation: The campaign reached 15.000 citizens Short description: The aim of the campaign is to build a positive counter narrative based on citizens’ work on common rumors in their countries. All the videos, infographics and objects produced during the project by partners were disseminated through the IntoEurope facebook page and the facebook and web pages of partners and Sabir festival. The IntoEurope project was presented during the Sabir festival and the infographics and the event was shared also on Sabir facebook page and on Sabir website. Thanks to the social networks diffusion have been reached 15.000 people. The main dissemination channels used: the IntoEurope facebook page, the partners’ web and social pages. We used hashtags (#IntoEurope #outofprejudices #againststereotypes) to disseminate the videos and infographics. All the activities of the project were presented on IntoEurope Facebook page and there were presented on the website and facebook page of each partners association. Through these networks, we elaborated our own contents and we shared videos, infographics and other materials jointly developed by the members of the partnership. With the project we have designed bookmarks, posters, programs, magnets and pens with the name of the project and we have created power point presentations for the workshops using a common template with the name of the project and the logos.