Nella tua terra – Dove Si Balla
2024
Synergy, exchange, and development: these are the key themes of the project “Where do you dance? In your land!”, won by the organizations Arci Casbah APS, Arci Tom APS, Strongvilla APS, Teatro Magro CSO, and Cooperativa Ai Confini last July 2023. These organizations will be involved in a two-year project dedicated to surveying cultural projects in the area, combating youth abandonment (both educational and territorial), and developing mentorship pathways.
Final objective: The development of youth leadership in the territory through edutainment formats that can be replicated in local and non-local youth settings.
The project was awarded as part of the “Young Protagonists – Good Territorial Practices” grant by Fondazione Cariverona, and is among the sixteen winning initiatives (out of 32 submitted within the established deadlines) selected from the provinces of Verona, Vicenza, Belluno, Ancona, and Mantova. Of the resources made available by the grant, amounting to 1.3 million euros, Fondazione Cariverona chose to allocate 90,000 euros to the Mantuan project, fully covering and supporting the expenses for the actions carried out by the project partners, demonstrating the recognition of the value of the proposed actions.
What proved successful was the desire to enhance youth leadership on multiple fronts: the development of the local artistic fabric, the acquisition of skills in the cultural field, and the willingness to invest these new skills in favor of territorial development, also as a tool to combat school dropout, all following edutainment and grassroots training approaches. Indeed, central will be the moment of consolidation of all inputs in the creation of a new event-format, which will be promoted in the venues of the project partners and in the venues of 3 “guest” territories, identified for their critical issues in terms of youth appeal and capacity for renewal: Arci Primo Maggio of San Benedetto, Arci Birillistica Marmirolese, and Arci Laghi Margonara (Gonzaga).
PREVIOUS GOOD PRACTICES
The starting point of this project was the good practices already tested by the organizations involved, which in recent years have given life to formats capable of standing out within the local entertainment offerings precisely because they are innovative: “Where do you dance” for the city area and “This Land Is Your Land” for the Suzzara district. These two new forms of entertainment have been able, in their previous editions, to be a mash-up between recreational, educational, and supportive proposals for the artistic identity of emerging projects, responding to new needs of a young target eager to receive proposals in which they can be protagonists as well as simple users.
The meeting point between these two previous projects was the possibility of making young Mantuan artists protagonists, identified thanks to the mapping conducted with the “This Land Is Your Land” project, within the event schedule of “Where do you dance”, a format capable of combining training and dissemination, entertainment, sociality, and risk prevention (thanks to the involvement of specialized social cooperatives).
A success that goes beyond participation: the approach of a strongly youth target to these initiatives has also consolidated from the point of view of active participation, favoring the acquisition of new skills in about 50 new young people who, thanks to this experience, have been introduced to volunteer activities within the hosting organizations.
THE PROJECT
The project, officially launched on September 1st, will now enter the heart of the first of its two phases, distributed over two years of planning (until August 2025).
The mapping begun by the project promoted in 2018 by Arci Casbah with “This Land Is Your Land” will be implemented thanks to a census aimed, in addition to new musical realities, also at artistic/theatrical projects and groups of non-organized young people who promote cultural content, and who will be involved in the entertainment part of the format.
Parallel to this moment, the steering committee composed of the partners will work in synergy on proposals for improvement and refinement of the educational/informative part, also proposed within the format, and on mentorship actions conducted by the project partners and guided by the experience of Cooperativa Ai Confini. These specialized training sessions will be aimed at young protagonists of the local cultural fabric (volunteers and young members) and at the 3 partner territories that will host the format in the second phase of the project, to favor the acquisition of skills on the theme of involvement, volunteering, youth leadership, and thus create fertile ground for the dissemination of the project, with an important exchange of know-how and intergenerational skills.
The second phase will instead concern the more operational part of the project and will materialize with the live presentation of the cultural series that will bring the new format to the Province, in 15 events that will be proposed in the 2 pioneering youth clubs (Arci Tom and Arci Casbah) and in the 3 hosting and “contaminated” realities: Arci Primo Maggio (San Benedetto), Arci Birillistica Marmirolese, Arci Laghi Margonara.