Minorities as opportunity and occasion for chrysalis

The main objective of the project was to create a training tool capable of responding to the need to develop intercultural interpersonal skills and abilities for operators and professionals who in their daily work do find themselves operating in multicultural contexts and with minority groups. As a result improve the quality of theirs intervention towards beneficiaries, not only in the context of youth organizations, but also in other contexts educational, such as school, and professional in general. This objective was fulfilled with the realization of MOOC “Union of Minorities. Educational tools for the European Cultural Mosaic ”, a product with characteristics techniques (its accessibility to a broad audience of learners) and content (theoretical and practical aspects on the topics of multiculturalism and the construction of inclusive educational pathways), stands as an instrument of education and training shared with an intersectoral approach, which combines methodologies, tools and knowledge typical of education formal and non-formal education, coming from the public and private sector, and that, addressing the topic of multiculturalism in the broad sense (not only with reference to its most evident aspects linked to belonging to an ethnic group or practicing a different language), offers a space for deepening professional and personal skills deemed necessary to understand and operate in European and national social contexts for which it becomes fundamental possess an intercultural approach based on recognition and respect for differences. The MOOC was the result of a path that saw the synergistic collaboration between the worlds of formal and non-formal education formal, private and public and which was built throughout the project life cycle through specific contributions of the work group and the study visits that took place during the first year, during which they were visit various realities and it has been possible to observe, learn and evaluate different experiences and ways of working. The Observation process established during the study visits allowed the collection of data used to identify the topics found among the most important in the various areas and finalize the modular structure of the course following one pedagogical logic identified by the work group. It is for this reason that the MOOC includes chapters that they offer important theoretical ideas to better understand and reflect on topics such as multiculturalism, globalization, colonialism, the concept of minority, stereotypes and processes of stigmatization, whose mastery is fundamental importance not only when working with young people but in all those contexts in which different cultures meet and various differences, to create a more inclusive society, and at the same time functional. This theoretical basis represents the foundations on which a pedagogical path was then built starting from the necessary personal skills to learners to then be able to decline them in their respective professional fields, we continue towards the learning of methodologies for the management of groups, specific approaches and methods for working with minorities (applicable to different target groups, and replicable in different contexts) to provide insights on the importance of implementing systematic and structured actions by working on the web, and on the importance of evaluation as a tool to reflect on one's own activities / initiatives and then arrange oneself to learn to increase the quality of their interventions in order to achieve more effective and responsive results real needs of the target with whom you work. Through this project and the production of the online course, and its dissemination to an audience of users that goes beyond the the world of youth and NGOs, therefore, we wanted to contribute in a concrete way to provide an additional tool for improve the skills and individual knowledge of professionals engaged in work with cultural minorities generically intended to improve the quality of the services they offer to the beneficiaries, but also to spread interest and attention to the theme of intercultural education and recognition of the other as a source of mutual enrichment and basis for building solidary relationships within non-monolithic societies and communities characterized by an extreme variety of linguistic, cultural and behavioral codes.