With COSMIC - Creating Opportunities for Migrant Inclusion, a project aiming at young adults from Italy, Germany and Spain I had the opportunity to participate in an Erasmus+ project for the first time. The NGO Mine Vaganti hosted about 20 people in a beautiful camping site where we had to work and live together within an intercultural learning framework. I enjoyed every single moment and just a few weeks later I still remember this wonderful time which puts a big smile on my face. It was great to get to know all the activities which help to break the ice between complete strangers and team building games to create a very intimate and familiar environment among all of us within a very short period of time. The facilitators and volunteers of Mine Vaganti, the hosting organisation, did an amazing job considering that the pandemic brought new challenges to this project. I would therefore once again express my gratitude to everyone involved to create such a wonderful and memorable time in Sardinia for all of us. At our camping site right at the sea close to the beautiful city of San Teodoro in Sardinia every day felt like a new adventure with new learnings, new experimentation with art and ways to express ourselves creatively and many deep and inspiring talks with other participants. We spent time together in and after the workshops. There were many options for things to do, swimming and relaxing at the beach, exploring the nightlife of San Teodoro or just enjoying wine and good conversations in our cosy camping space. As the aim of this project yielded at creating opportunities for migrant inclusion through art it was absolutely fantastic to be close to nature. Being at the beach, eating wonderful fresh Sardinian food and being around so many positive people really nourished my creativity. It provided me with an almost infinite source of inspiration and sometimes I just enjoyed alone time at the beach watching the sunrise and doing little sketches of the sea. For the workshop part itself, we were asked to get into groups and create concepts for artistic practices and even create an Erasmus project in theory as well. We could exchange ideas, stories, which helped to improve our knowledge and testing our skills. Throughout the whole duration of the project, there was an open-mindedness towards our ideas, questions and even challenges which created a fruitful and safe environment for non-formal education and this enhanced our experience of this project. We explored topics evolving around stereotypes, prejudices, hate, racism, discrimination and together we worked hard with the help of non-formal education methods to promote positive change in our society. We also talked about how important diversity is that being said not everyone was not having a direct relationship to art or artistic tools everyone could contribute in their own ways. We created new artistic practices for example by combining the practice of dance with soccer and there were also other very surprising outcomes of our group work. We all were very different in the way we perceive art and we all saw different obstacles and challenges that prevent young adults from feeling part of the society talking from their own experiences. Therefore, we could come up with many ideas and concepts on how to spread positive values of inclusion and tolerance through practical art exercises and beyond. As part of this intercultural exchange, each of the countries hosted a cultural evening. One evening the Italian team presented Sardinia organised a buffet with the most delicious foods and beverages coming from the Island while talking us through Sardinia’s history and traditions and they did also introduce us to Sardinian art and literature. It was an amazing cultural learning experience. I felt that even though we were are all very different characters this project helped to create an understanding of multicultural living and learning. Each and every one of us could contribute to this project in their own way and therefore make it unique. My learning experience went beyond the flow of new information, I could make strong bonds with other participants, deconstruct prejudices I maybe had towards certain topics and create empathy and a more open-minded way of thinking towards migrants as well. But most importantly I could learn so much about the importance of such projects and Erasmus+. I am grateful I went to Sardinia and I felt connected to a lot of people which I have known for only a few days, we have one big Erasmus family. For someone like me who is not very informed about Erasmus opportunities, it was a great learning experience as well and I recommend to anyone who has a chance to participate to go on this journey and learn from each other.
Marc-Tommy
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