Ink of Freedom is a funded project through the Erasmus+ program, and has 3 organisations involved: DCTR (Portugal), Esplai (Spain) and YC Epirus (Greece). The project aims to empower and stimulate young people to find innovative ways of participating in EU democratic life, by strengthening young people’s sense of belonging and understanding of EU values.

 

This project also aims to increase the perception of the fragility of the democracy in which we live, evident in the resurgence of nationalist and extremist rhetoric, intolerance and xenophobia, that has systematically gained, over the last few years and in electoral processes within the European space, a growing number of supporters. As attentive citizens involved in the search for answers to Europe's current and future challenges, we want to develop actions that stimulate the ability to reinforce people's participation in the decision-making processes of their countries.

 

The similarities we found between dictatorial regimes in Portugal, Spain and Greece, both in the characteristics of the regimes and in the moment in history in which they occurred, led to this Consortium and the project. These similarities, and how the processes of democratic liberation triumphed, are a common basis that led us to understand that this approach will be an interesting way of motivating young people to want to know better how things happened and what difficulties and restrictions existed before, comparing past and present to build the future they want to see. 

 

Having this in mind, Ink of Freedom has 3 main blocks of activities:

 

#1 Research

#2 Creative Process, that will use the data obtained in the block #1

#3 European Route App, which will use the data and results obtained both in blocks #1 and #2

 

During the research phase, each partner organisation will analyse data obtained from intergenerational focus groups, from interviews of people who have lived, or who's immediate relatives have lived through the dictatorship period, and from letters exchanged between individuals during the dictatorship period. 

 

The results of the research will be used by artists and young people, in order to create artistic performances inspired by the findings. Local performances will be shown in the regions of where the young people and organisations are located in, as well, the groups of young people will travel to each other to perform in each other's cities. 

 

Finally, the visual materials, such as the letters, and videos from the performances, along information obtained during the research phase, will be used to create the European Route App, where users will be able to access the contents and use VR functions to visit both historic and performance locations and see relevant content at the locations.

 

Below, you can read news and updates of the project!