Cultural Coach Project

Outline

SALTO Cultural Diversity together with several National Agencies are implementing the Cultural Coach Project to give a common - but flexible and adaptable - approach to work with different communities in Europe.
Austria, Belgium Flanders, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom are part of the project.

The aim of the project is to support and train representatives from a cultural minority who would become a bridge between their community and the Youth in Action programme.

Objectives

• Build realistic action plans at national and European level with a programme of activity tailored for each minority
• Train and mentor the Cultural Coaches to support them in implementing activities at local level
• Create a peer support group at European level

The Cultural Coach will be a key person and will assist, advice, and/or coach minority communities within the Youth in Action programme.

Final beneficiaries

'Minority groups' in terms of language, nationality, religion, and/or culture that face difficulties to access public services in general and to be part of the Youth in Action programme in particular.

For different countries 'minority communities' means different realities: sometimes there is a religious component, sometimes a linguistic component, sometimes different cultural backgrounds.
These groups are not the same; they don't have the same history and the words have different meanings but some groups of youngsters face, even if in different ways, the same reality of prejudices, stereotypes, racism and xenophobia, discriminations, and are socially disadvantaged.

Next Activity

A cross-community networking event is planned for May 2012.

Past Activities

• Making it Reality - 2 to 7 June 2011
  This event gathered young people and youth workers from cultural minority groups from all over Europe wishing to develop the visibility of their local project. The programme highlight was a public event, or flashmob, that the participants planned and delivered in Helsinki to great effect.
  See the Cultural Coach participants in action here.
  Hear more from the Cultural Coaches: Artur (Estonia), Martine (Bulgaria), Farah (UK), Melany (Netherlands), Youssef (Belgium), Toni (Bulgaria), Jo (Portugal) - trainer
• Mentoring of Cultural Coaches - May to December 2010
  Each Cultural Coach received a personal mentoring throughout the year to support them in the implementation of their action plan.
• Cultural Coach training and follow-up meeting between National Agencies and Cultural Coaches - April 2010
  Training course in the UK to develop their skills and competences on active youth participation, project management, and coaching youth groups. This was followed by a meeting between Cultural Coaches and National Agencies to continue the work at national level.
• Cultural Coaches and National Agencies Seminar - November 2009
  The seminar gathered in Finland the National Agency staff and representatives of cultural minorities, so-called 'Cultural Coach', to share good practices, resources, and build action plans at national level.
• Working group of National Agencies - January 2009
  This group aimed at co-ordinating the different strategies of National Agencies working with cultural minorities (especially migrants) within the Youth in Action programme and developing a European approach regarding this topic.