Eurolibrary

Media materials:

Download
Xeracion

Organisation:

Xeracion

Country:

Spain

About organisation:

We're a 10 years old organisation based in the northwest of Spain. Our aim is to offer opportunities of mobility, volunteering and participation to the youth of our area. We actively work on local and international initiatives helping to preserve and restore endangered environments, bridging youngsters and decision makers for policy reform and offering non formal learning opportunities for people with fewer opportunities. Thus we help to disseminate European opportunities in our area of influence. Since 2017 we run an info point in the Youth house of Ferrol which since 2022 belongs to the Eurodesk network

Title of the project

Eurolibrary

Start date:

28/9/2022

End date:

5/10/2022

Objectives:

EUROLIBRARY was an original international initiative in which 21 emerging creatives from 4 European countries participated. Over the course of 6 intense days we worked on the organisation of free public activities in the different villages along the Camino de Santiago. This is how we developed human libraries, created stands in central squares, held workshops with schools and planted trees with the local community. All with the mission of sharing and collecting travel experiences while promoting opportunities for international youth mobility.

Why the project was: empowering young people, adapting to changing realities, or thinking out of the box:

The innovative part of our initiative wasn't bringing international experience participants of European projects to small villages to share their experiences. That was done many times before. The key of its success was to replace lecture presentations with one to one intimate conversations. It's true we couldn't reach such a huge audience but we're sure the youngsters involved were deeply impacted and inspired to travel and discover Europe. The methodology used (human library) allowed us to create a safe and comfortable space for exchanging not only travel tips but emotions with a stranger. But it was also a very moving project for the participants. They lived an experience that put them out of their comfort zone by travelling and living in motorhomes with people from other countries along the pilgrimage route to Santiago. A very intense week that stretched their skills as storytellers, promoters or videomakers.

How the project was inclusive:

From the very beginning we wanted to create a project that inspires not only the direct participants and attendants but a wider European audience. That's why we planned the creation of high quality content that could document all the experiences and reflections along the journey. Together with 5 of the participants (videomakers, video bloggers and experienced youtubers) we created life videos, reels, pictures... testimonials of the project that were widely distributed in Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and The Netherlands. The most elaborated of all this content was the short documentary narrating the life changing process of a youth exchange.During the project we had created info points for European mobility opportunities on all the events we organised. In that space we displayed Eurodesk merch and delivered Eurodesk materials as flyers.

Green aspect:

In order to compensate for a part of the CO2 emitted by the trips of our participants we included an activity of tree planting in our schedule. That's how we gathered +20 kids and the local government of one of the villages of the route who, together with our participants in a real intercultural way, planted over 30 native trees in a public park. Also our motto was to leave the places we passed better than we found them, so we organised 5 clean ups in different natural areas that allowed us to collect over 310 kg of plastics and trash.

How the project has given a European dimension to your event and ensured the visibility and promotion of Eurodesk?

From the very beginning we wanted to create a project that inspires not only the direct participants and attendants but a wider European audience. That's why we planned the creation of high quality content that could document all the experiences and reflections along the journey. Together with 5 of the participants (videomakers, video bloggers and experienced youtubers) we created life videos, reels, pictures... testimonials of the project that were widely distributed in Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and The Netherlands. The most elaborated of all this content was the short documentary narrating the life changing process of a youth exchange.During the project we had created info points for European mobility opportunities on all the events we organised. In that space we displayed Eurodesk merch and delivered Eurodesk materials as flyers.

Impact:

Main results of Eurolibrary are the following: 21 participants 3 full day open events organised in 3 different villages + 300 youngsters involved (76 of them as readers of stories on our human libraries) 30 new trees planted+310 kg of trash collected + 5000 visualisations of our media creations.