CULTURE PILOTS

The Project Culture Pilots was developed by the BFI – OÖ – AT for the European Capital of Culture Linz09. 12 female immigrants from Linz lead tours through the inner city and offered an insider’s view of their everyday life. These unconventional city tours for locals and tourists provided a setting for close-up-and-personal encounters with people, circumstances, origins, causes and concrete facts. Previously the migrant women attended a resource and process orientated empowerment CP training programme compassing e.g. biographical work, intercultural competences, conflict management, project management, development of city tours, competence assessment / individual coaching, training on the job. The city tours were a great success and Culture Pilots was honoured with the Austrian State Prize for Adult Education in the category “Innovation” 2009.

The TOI tackles the difficulty of many well qualified immigrants in EU – especially female – to find appropriate jobs according to their qualification on the labour market. At the same time the CP project addresses the need for intercultural dialogue to improve social understanding and promote an awareness of the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe.

The aim is to transfer and implement the CP curriculum and city tours in other European countries (FR, PT, IT, ES). To achieve this aim, the curriculum is adapted to the socio-cultural framework, the special needs of the target group, labour markets needs of skills as well as the general local conditions of each partner country. A main focus is the supplement qualification of trainers for the empowerment work in intercultural contexts – therefore a train the trainer workshop including guidelines will be designed and realized, qualifying trainers to support migrants to recognise their own competences and qualify them further by developing new skills to gain an adequate position on the labour market. Additionally, the exchange of knowledge and experiences between trainers and coaches from different countries will be encouraged by installing a communication platform on the project website.

Main impact at European level will be the further qualification of trainers and coaches to implement empowerment measures for immigrants supporting them in developing new skills and jobs by encouraging the cooperation between VET and the working world. Furthermore the unconventional city tours will enhance intercultural contact, dialogue and the awareness of the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe.

The consortium presents a geographic and institutional diversity: two private non profit adult education providers (AT, IT), a private NGO of European scope (FR) and a private cultural organization (ES) in creative arts and entertainment activities, a private local community association for social work (FR) and a private research center and body of international scope (PT) for professional, scientific and technical activities.