The European Erasmus+ KA204 project Rights n° 2019-1-IT02-KA204-063346 promotes active citizenship of elderly people by creating a bridge between generations based on raising awareness of social and human rights as the foundation of the rules, their respect, their defense and promotion in educational contexts, with innovative pedagogical methods, those of fairy tales in a suitcase. Rights then enter into dramatized fairy tales and become an instrument of mediation of the value of rights through the direct experience of the elderly. Therefore, the way in which the elderly relate to society is renewed, giving them the role of promoters, narrators and witnesses in the first person of the fundamental rights of society and their history penetrating into the world of children at school through fairy tales in their suitcases.

The Rights project starts from a fundamental need: to make older people active again through doing, saying and imagining. The tool through which the project aims to achieve this, they are the suitcases of rights stories that will be built and brought to schools for children from 8 to 12 years. To do this, the elderly will have to know and analyze fairy tales, extrapolating and creating a discourse on human rights that will be reported as a narrative to the students.

The elderly will benefit from specific training in the three areas: analysis of fairy tales and inviolable rights, the creation of suitcases for fairy tales of rights, class management methodologies in non-formal educational activities. This last part will see the direct collaboration of the teachers, who will also increase their skills by coming into contact with a new practical and concrete educational tool (as opposed to digital virtuality).

The suitcases created will remain at the disposal of the local schools or cultural centers, which will act as a collection and exchange point for the suitcases of the fairy tales of rights and the training modules of the project. Through the commitment of the elderly, through the school and with activities aimed at the territory, Rights project also wants to involve society is a reflection on the inviolability and defense of human rights.

The objectives of the project Rights are multiple:

1. Creating a bridge between generations on the central theme of fundamental rights;
2. To stimulate the elderly to resume an active role in society as promoters and defenders of fundamental rights;
3. To train the elderly in the areas of defence of human rights, crafts and education;
4. Raising awareness among the younger generations on the importance of defending their own and all society’s rights;
5. To spread the importance of active citizenship through concrete actions;
6. Train the elderly to concretely realize and elaborate fairy tales in real suitcases to be exchanged and passed on to children in schools.

The project will produce training modules and video lessons that will be available to all interested parties on the appropriate online platform. Furthermore, suitcases of fairy tales of rights will be made available to the local community through libraries and cultural centers and exchanged and distributed through the barter of suitcases. The impact of the project will therefore not be limited to the schools involved but will expand to the local and national community, acquire a transnational dimension thanks to the use of the internet.

PARTNERS

• Polo Europeo della Conoscenza (Italy) – Coordinator;
• Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon (Spain);
• Panevezys District Education Centre (Lithuania);
• Make It Better (Portugal);
• Association for the Regional Initiatives Development ARID (Poland);
• Association Sinaptica (Romania).

TARGET GROUP

– Seniors from 60 onwards: encouraged to rediscover human rights to pass them on to future generations, they will analyze fairy tales and find new languages to communicate content, they will be bearers of values and a model to follow for future conscious citizens; – Students aged between 8 and 12, at a particular stage in the development of civil conduct, a true target group of educational activities that will be carried out by the elderly. They will know old and new fairy tales and will assimilate metaphorically the contents and values; – Teachers: they will have effective pedagogical tools at their disposal which are the antithesis of digital, but which positively involve students; – School and society: the suitcases created by the project (and the training manual) will remain available to schools, libraries or cultural centers.