My Soft City: From Flaneur to Entrepreneur

Background The core of the My Soft City project is an exchange of good practices and development of innovation through team work (a team of countries) that can convince youth to feel more European and to appreciate heritage as being both similar and different from one country to another. Moreover, the input of various perspectives of experts from different countries, made the partnership achieve high quality standards by delivering out-of-the box results. We have successfully addressed common needs of our project's target groups: TG1: Youth aged 16-22 from the partner regions, needed to - raise their awareness on the importance of European cultural heritage preservation - develop competences in cultural heritage, art, digital illustration, entrepreneurship, soft skills, creative writing, language skills and other digital skills. - engage and involve them in social and cultural actions together with youth with fewer opportunities - feel more European - improve their chances of employability - develop entrepreneurial spirit and competences TG2: Youth Workers from partner regions needed: - methodology in the field of cultural heritage education - an intercultural and international network of people interested in cultural heritage and cultural actions - innovative and youth-friendly tools in the domain of youth work and mobility TG3: The communities of the project partner cities needed: - preserve and promote local, regional and European cultural heritage - include youth in culture-related activities Objectives Through this project, we aimed, and successfully achieved to unite various organizations, institutions, stakeholders, artists, teachers, youth workers, young people and experts in various fields, in order to celebrate European heritage, to raise awareness on its history and on its future and to promote culture for the sake of youth. The project worked with the expertise of 8 organizations and with the creativity of young change-makers (16-22 years old) who notably improved youth tourism locally. The project developed on a cross-sectorial cooperation on more fields: mapping, entrepreneurship, creativity, youth work, non formal education and art. The main aim of the project was achieved: To foster urban regeneration, employability and social inclusion and cohesion through a creative, educational, participatory, inclusive and intercultural approach to European Cultural Heritage in Nimes (France), Constanta (Romania), Funchal (Portugal) and Lund (Sweden), during 3 years. The specific objectives of the project were achieved: 1.To train youth workers and to create innovative non-formal tools and methods in the field of culture, heritage and social entrepreneurship through European cooperation among the project partners. 2.To digitalize and promote urban heritage from the 4 partner cities of the project, through youth engagement. 3. To develop youth's competences in the project fields. Implementation My Soft City followed the implementation plan provided in the initial application form, as follows: * Management and Dissemination activities throughout the 3 years. * 4 Transnational Project Meetings (one in each country) took place successfully and made the consortium of partners stronger, the partners' staff also exchanged good practices and learned from each other more about project management. *14 online partner meetings. * 5 European Youth Worker Trainings took place successfully (3 days of activity and 2 days of travel each), as follows: -C1 Inclusion SE Hello Youth -C2 Illustration FR Lycee CCI -C3 Creative Writing RO HEI -C4 Gamification PT Art -C5 Entrepreneurship PT Art * 4 Multiplier Events (one in each country), that promoted the project and found more stakeholders that would like to incorporate the project results into their activity * 25 Youth Workshops (5/ country on the same topics as the youth worker trainings) * Intellectual Output- related activities: meetings, product design, content creation, product editing, content translation, knowledge sharing sessions online among the project partners, feedback and evaluation activities, team selection, evaluation etc. Achievements Project Outputs: -IO1: MY SOFT CITY MAPS: city illustrated maps by youth for youth with the assistance of experts. -IO2: PlayBook – Rediscover your City and the Derive City Cards: 4 sets of illustrated cards from each country for local culture board games, local trasure hunts and 8 activities created by the project partners (1/ country), as methodology for the play cards. -IO3: Stories of Success by Social Entrepreneurs Book with 20 stories of success from Europe. The products can be found on the project website: https://my-soft-city.com/ Other concrete results are: 4 unique illustrated maps created by youth for youth 8 original games to be used by youth or youth workers 300 illustrated cards created by youth for youth with the purpose of promoting cultural heritage. 20 stories of success form Europe about social entrepreneurship 20 entrepreneurs and social businesses promoted through the project 200 stakeholders reached at project level through multiplier eventsd 100 stakeholders reached at project level through other connected activities, who learned about the project 100 youth trained at project level 160 youth workers trained at project level at least 1200 people informed at project level about MY SOFT CITY