YOUTH4CULTURE - Encouraging active youth participation in European cultural heritage promotion

YOUTH4CULTURE is launched by the Cultural Route of Charles V following the reccommendation of the European Council and the report titled "A Policy Brief on Cultural Routes in Europe"(2019) about the need for joint action on how to involve stakeholders and catalyse interest in cultural heritage, in particular among young people, as well as among local and regional policymakers. These main reccommendations motivated the Lead Partner to launch this Erasmus project in order to continue improving their skills, working methods and tools regarding civic participation and cultural promotion. YOUTH4CULTURE wanted to work on the conclusions of the joint study developed between the Commission and the Council of Europe named “European Cultural Routes impact on SMEs' innovation and competitiveness” that found that Cultural Routes have shown enormous potential for SMEs generation, clustering, intercultural dialogue, and promoting the image of Europe in general. This shows that Cultural Routes can also strongly contribute to local economies and societies as they work on a sustainable and ethical model, building on local knowledge and skills, with a special focus con rural areas, regarding that 90% of cultural routes are through rural areas.

First of all, and regarding civic engagement and participation, and also regarding promoting active citizenship and youth entrepreneurship and employability, YOUTH4CULTURE project aimed to explore new strategies and working methods to encourage youth civic participation in the promotion and valorization of European cultural heritage as a sustainable resource for entrepreneurship and sustainable development. In this field, the project implemented several activities to promote the exchange of best practices, the ideas generation, the training of youthworkers skills and working methods and their professional development that would allow them to define new initiatives related to youth participation, promotion of European cultural heritage and youth social inclusion. Project partners have worked on: - Improve youth work methods to promote youth civic participation and revalorization of European Cultural Heritage; - Upgrade professional skills of youth workers who support youth entrepreneurship in cultural businesses; - Explore best practices to adapt in the different European contexts regarding civic engagement, cultural promotion and youth; - Improve efficiency and impact of European Cultural Routes;

YOUTH4CULTURE has implemented the following activities: 1. Kick-off meeting by the CNVC in Spain. 2. Spreading, promoting and engaging the participation of local communities incultural routes initiatives by the Associazione Strada Europea della Ceramica in Italy. 3. Project management and local impact activities leaded by by the CNVC in Spain. 4. Short-term training course by the CULTURAL FOUNDATION ROUTES OF THE OLIVE TREE in Greece. 5. Final meeting and final project conference by the CNVC in Barcelona, Spain, leaded by AEPJ in Luxembourg.

The main expected results were the learning between peers through the exchange of experiences and best practices, about how to address the involvement and increasing the civic participation of youngsters in the cultural initiatives, like for example providing them information about different activities or opportunities to develop jointly in their environment, exchange of intercultural practices regarding the new European strategies in the field, and including some activities like intercultural dialogue and joint reflection. In conclusion, YOUTH4CULTURE would contribute to develop new competencies and skills of managers and workers, combining European Cultural Heritage management and youth paticipation, in terms of social inclusion. All of this, taking into account the collaboration between Cultural Routes with municipalities and their officers, the local communities, and of a wide number of stakeholders like SMEs, NGOs, etc. that participate in Cultural Routes.