Valongo: a journey of discovery – almost from scratch

The Portuguese town of Valongo is an URBACT good practice city regarding inclusion - the Living Library project was recognized as a good practice in 2019.

The invitation to join a challenging transfer network such as OnStage was received with enthusiasm and some concern, because all the other cities had a cultural good practice already but we were starting from scratch.

The municipality launched an open call to social, cultural, and educational institutions in the territory and an enthusiastic and diverse Urbact Local Group (ULG) was created. The first months were dedicated to define our target audience, create a common goal and an action plan.

The first big decision was to work inclusion with NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training), or youngsters at risk of becoming NEETs.

A journey of discovery

2019 was dedicated to exploring and gathering of more information. We had three main targets:

1. Understanding the needs and resources of the territory and how performative arts would be received by youngsters.

Our first priority was understanding and quantifying the number of youngsters that are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET in the territory. We invested our time by doing questioners to stakeholders. At the same time we tried to map the cultural practices that exist in the territory regarding performative arts.

A demo action was also carried out. During a local event that gathers thousands of people try out workshops of theatre, circus, music, and hip hop were available to youngsters in general but an effort was made to also have youngsters at risk of becoming NEET there.

2. Discovering and getting to know the organizations that belong to the ULG, with a strong emphasis in the cultural ones.

To better understand what we want to do, we invested our time in visits to the cultural organizations that belong to the ULG but also to other local and national good-practices.

3. Creating opportunities for discussion with experts and discover new possibilities of action.

Three thematic public sessions were implemented. Experts from the academia, good-practices of other territories and practitioners were invited to discuss with the ULG and whoever wanted to join the way.

During the next months we will continue with our journey. In this pandemic times we are understanding how we can adapt: more online events, new materials... Although, as soon as some normality is achieved more demo actions, visits and public sessions are planned.  Valongo will also host the last transnational meeting of this partnership, in September.

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Article by Marta Daniela Silva Costa - For further information, please contact her at MartaDaniela.Costa@cm-valongo.pt

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