Creativity for Freedom - A CREATIVE NETWORK FOR EUROPEAN YOUTH

INTRODUCTION
The scientific evidence and the experience of the expert demonstrate that creativity is not a feature of a few people (artists, advertising agent, etc.), but it is a natural gift for all from childhood.
The creativity is closely linked to the mental and physical health. If we develop the ability to live creative relationships, we can improve social life, self-esteem and psychological well-being. This contributes in the care and rehabilitation of people with mental illness. Moreover, the development of creative relationships is important for the prevention of many physical diseases because of the close connection between the mental health and physical well-being.
The creativity is not part of the character or a single function of the brain. The true creativity is in the human relations.
The creativity that we need to develop is a human relationship and it is characterized by many elements, among which the following are very important:
the empathy (the communication of deep emotions)
the integration (the combination of different and opposite polarities without canceling the individuality, in a mutual and creative exchange)
the tolerance (which accepts and promotes all the diversities)
the harmony (that can generate balance among all the different elements)
These elements characterize both the creative activity of a great artist, that the creativity of a teacher or of a cook. These are the elements that give added value to human creativity and a key role in the our welfare and in the progress of the society.
The creativity, as Daniel Goleman (psychologist, expert in intelligence and creativity) says, is "much more than an occasional intuition or a proof of eccentricity. It comes out from a deeper source."
However, it is very common to reduce the creativity to something more limited, "a kind of thinking that generate new ideas and concepts" continually in a frantic productivity. This approach does not help to eliminate the block of the ability to establish creative relationships, that is instinctive and natural for all since childhood.
The creativity that allows to establish new relationship is the only one that may allow the growth of a better creative generation, the intercultural dialogue and the integration of cultural diversity. On the other hand, as many experts, politicians, official documents of the European Union say, the creativity is fundamental to the economic and social progress. Only unlocking the creativity, we can overcome the deep crisis and big issues that affect contemporary society, ensuring a real progress and a better future.

The first issue to face is the distortion of the concept of creativity that causes confusion and misunderstandings. Many people, talking about creativity, refer to innovation, invention, problem solving, originality. Even if these aspects of the creativity are very important, it would be very reductive to limit the creative act and the creative relationship that people are able to make. All the artists realize the importance of the empathy, the emotions, the ability to surprise. Nevertheless in many training courses and everywhere we talk about creativity, we continue to reduce it to simple innovation and inventiveness.
Many scientific data show that the block of human creativity is now very allarming, even in children and young people, because of an inadequate education. Harold Anderson (a great psychologist expert on creativity) about 60 years ago said that: "Creativity is in everybody. It's better to say that it was in each of us, when we were children. The creativity is a universal element for children. Among adults it is almost non-existent. The biggest challenge is to understand what happened to this important resource. This is a current issue, which is the subject of our research." Picasso had already stressed that everyone is creative when they are children, the problem is being creative as adults.
Unfortunately the block of the creativity causes a many serious effects both on the individual person and in the society. We are losing not only the greatest resource of mankind, but we cause a serious existential malaise of people that appear in many forms. The most serious of these was already indicated by Erich Fromm: "If man can't create he wants to destroy." The increasing of destructiveness is one of the main consequences of the block of the creativity among young people. The destructive attitude is expressed not only in violent behavior (to objects or to other people), but also in various forms of self-destructiveness (suicide, use of alcohol and various drugs, risk behavior, etc). Nowadays we talk a lot about of the waste of natural resources and the damages to nature. But we often forgot that the biggest waste, the greatest crime of the present society is to let "a huge number of potential life artists are definitively lost" (V. CEI, Libera la tua creatività, F. Angeli) .
In this very serious crisis that involves the whole society, the crisis linked to the youth is much more alarming. The consequences of this crisis of values are problems that we face daily and that destroy the lives of a huge number of young people and their families: violence (on the street, at home, at school: bullying), destructiveness, self-destructiveness, alcoholism, drugs, emotional issues, existential malaise to psychiatric disorders (depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, addictions, etc.), unemployment, risk behavior, etc..

THE PROJECT
Our project is finalized to activate a European network for creativity, which can talk over the creativity as a transversal competence for young people living in Europe to face new social challenges. The project will promote social and educational activities that will lead to a shared reflection in the partnership on the value of creativity for young Europeans.
The activation of the project will lead to the development of a pedagogical model for the youth animation and the social work.

The project is organized in four steps:
STEP 1 – JOINT CREATIVE STAFF TRAINING EVENT
In the first phase of the project we will organize a training event for the social workers from the partner organizations. It is an advanced training workshop lasting 7 days on the theme of human creativity (as indicated in the introduction). The training event is about the leading of creative groups, the issues related to the block of creativity, especially in young people, the techniques to release and develop creativity, with a reflection on the work with the integrated groups that include people with disabilities (physical and psychological) and all the various forms of diversity ( mental, physical, cultural, sexual, racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, etc.). The trainers and programs of the workshop will be defined with the european partners. It will start within 30 days of the beginning of the project. The participants are workers already aware of the importance of creativity and that can share with the group their experiences in order to share the exchange of good practices. At the end of the event operators will have an experimental kit to activate a creative job with a group of young people in their country.
STEP 2 - TESTING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN THE FIELD OF YOUTH WORK LINKED TO THE CREATIVITY
In the second phase of the project the workshop/creative groups will be activated in the European countries by the project partners and they will be founded on the principles of the project. The workshops/groups will last for about 4 months and will be set with the following features.
The main objective of the workshops/groups is to stimulate, to develop and to enhance the ability to live creative relationships, with others and with world.
Anyone can participate in the workshops. Any "diversity" is not a reason for exclusion, but it is even an element of preference for inclusion. The integration of all diversity is therefore fundamental for all laboratories/groups.
The activities can be in all the areas of creativity and art: for example, music, theater, cinema, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture, writing, dance, etc. It's not necessary to have a concrete product at the end of the workshops.
The mistake is not a "defect", but an useful event to have an experience, often an opportunity to find creative solutions.
The workshop leaders don't have the objective to take the participants to standards of performance. The workshop is more important than the results: the creative experiences, the emotions, the enthusiasm. Our attention is focused on the creative relationships among the participants and the group rather than the perfection of artistic performance.
The conductors of the workshops establish with the participants a creative relationship without put limits on the freedom to choose, to innovate and to experiment. "The basis of education for creativity is the confidence in the person, who is able to take upon himself the responsibility of his actions carried out dynamically. Educating for creativity basically means the education of the subject in terms of integrity and harmony "(G. Oliva)
The relationship between the trainer and the participants of the workshops is different from the usual teacher-student relationships. It must have all the characteristics of a creative relationship. It is not a one-way relationship between the expert and the students. The conductor has mainly the function to stimulate. He has to facilitates the process of liberation and development of creativity, in addition to the cultural growth, and he creates the conditions for a genuine communication once the transmission of content and values.
STEP 3 - DEVELOPMENT OF A METHODOLOGY FOR THE CREATIVITY '
It is a transversal action and support all the project phases. In this phase we will develop a working methodology for the development of creativity.
The idea is to achieve a product that gather the following elements and put them into an operating model than can be reproduced in other contexts:
the experiences of individual partners before the project,
the training activity and the exchange of best practices,
the observation of workshop,
an open source virtual space that will allow operators and learners to share the experience they are having.
In this action we have to involve a research institution/university that can follow all the project and can identify the tools for evaluation and monitoring of the whole process. It has the purpose to observe and collect the experiences during the process and to produce a pedagogical methodology for the development of creativity that can be used in many contexts.
As part of this action we will build a portal for the creativity that encourage the sharing of experiences of everyone. The portal will be an open source space where participants can tell what they are experiencing, exchange ideas and projects, share experiences and methods.
In this action we will produce an intellectual output to be presented during the next action.
STEP 4 - TRANSNATIONAL EVENT FOR THE CREATIVITY
During this last action the participating organizations and young people who took part in the workshops will attend the final event. In this situation we will present the whole program. During the public event the achievements and the leaders and participants work will be presented. The event will take place in Italy, in L'Aquila, in the context of the 2017 edition of the "Festival of Creativity". In this event they all the experiences in partner countries will meet.