PoGo - Poetry on the Go

Background A Eurobarometer report from 2017 on Cultural Heritage shows that 54% of the respondents on EU level believed that there was no common European culture as European countries are too different from one another. Worrying is that this opinion gained more supporters since 2007 when similar research was conducted. Even more worrying was that 50% of the young people aged 15-24 shared this believe. With this in mind, the partners identified the need to strengthen European identity amongst young people by giving them access to a shared European culture in an innovative and attractive way. The partners in the project chose to focus on poetry as it was identified that young people’ interest in poetry is on the rise young people driven by their “passion for politics” and need of “making sense of the world”. Objectives The project had three objectives as follows: 1. By August 2021, to give 487 young people from the participating countries the opportunity to define European culture and contribute to its enrichment; 2. By December 2021, to develop a mobile application that gives young people access to European culture as defined by their fellows; 3. To foster, by the end of the project, a private-public partnership with at least 60 stakeholders in the partner countries that contributes at promoting a shared European culture. Although the partners could meet the timing aimed at due the Covid-19 pandemic, the partners met all the objectives and considerable exceeded the targets (i.e., ca 2927 young people were involved in developing the app, and 131 agreements were made with the local stakeholders). Implementation The achieve its objectives, the project consisted of the following activities: 1. Formation of a Poetry Committee in each partner organisations. 2. Pre-selection of national poems in categories of Classis or Forgotten, Contemporary and Poetry by Young People. 3. National polls for selecting national poetry in the three categories. 4. Video recording of young people reciting the poems in the three categories. 5. A blended mobility for 12 young people where they explored what is a European shared cultures, creative processes and style and where they have created in mixed groups seven poems for the category “Collaborative Poems”. 6. Technical development of app. Development of AR-markers. 7. App testing and finalisation. 8. App launch through a social media campaign 9. Multiplier Events and other dissemination activities 10. Promotion amongst local stakeholders and visibility agreements. Achievements The project produces a mobile app based on the augmented reality technology that bring in the young people’ environment 72 poems from the partner countries classified in three categories: Classic or Forgotten, Contemporary, Poetry by Young People and Collaborative poems. Additionally, the app showcases seven Collaborative poems in English created by 12 young people who participated in a Blended Mobility within the project. The project reached 278 stakeholders through the multiplier events organised, ca. 14.181 stakeholders through other dissemination activities and 97.015 stakeholder at European level through a campaign on social media. By the time of reporting, the app had 1981 downloads (currently 394 active downloads).