Passi Societa Cooperativa

OTHERPLACES

Other Places is a Participatory Theatre project organized by Passi Societa Cooperativa and funded by the European Union in the framework of the Youth in Action Programme.The project was designed to help European youngsters to analyze the current social and economic status.

It gathered 30 participants from Portugal, Italy and Spain, in the small town of Ravenna, to lead them through a process of self reflection and definition of their social situation and discomfort, expectations, obstacles and dreams in view of a more inclusive European society. The understanding of “Places” as spaces for new meanings and opportunities, is crucial to the project.


THE CHALLENGE

The global economic crisis, with its consequences in the labour market such as the high level of unemployment, has produced in young people a loss of confidence in what the future has to offer. The common solution is to migrate wherever there is the chance, the opportunity, to realize their dreams.This phenomenon has a double effect. The first is the loss of human capital for the communities to which the young people belong. The second is the loss of identity and traditions for the cities they become more and more like non-places.
The protests against the austerity measures adopted by most european governments, have shown us that both adults and young people necessitate to take part in the decisional process, they expect to be involved and strive to be empowered.

THE IMPACT

Through the Theatre of the Oppressed and the Invisible Theatre techniques, the participants went through an experience of self-definition, they enacted the situation they are living to envision possibilities and solutions.