Radio V.I.T.A. (Voices In The Air) is an Erasmus+ project yield by four organizations based in France, Spain and Austria motivated by their love for radio and their belief that it constitutes a powerful communication tool.

In the frame of this project, we are working with people who face discriminations (migrant people, women, seniors…) and whose points of view are not represented today in mainstream media. This project represents an opportunity for them to be empowered and express themselves during workshops by sharing their stories with peers while developing soft skills. From training sessions to the final recording of a radio show, workshops will be driven by collective reflections and by the practice and explanation of radiophonic methods. The radio show that will arise from their conversations will tackle preconceptions, stereotypes and prejudices about discriminated groups, and will thus help developing more inclusive societies. The different European actors of this project are convinced that people of different cultural background have a lot of richness to exchange, while the prevailing speeches in media are based on distrust.

The joint creation of a radio program is in a way a pretext for a meeting. The microphone releases the speech, and it serves as a memorial tool for the participants of the workshops. It is an opportunity to create a constructive dialogue, to question our daily environment and to address some taboos or overlooked topics related to social empowerment.

V.I.T.A. will set a new methodology to use the radio not only as a means for self-expression and representation but also as a creative way to address topics linked to social empowerment such as empowerment, equality, interculturality, identity, values and democratization process.

Our main objectives are:

  • To promote the social empowerment of discriminated people through empowerment and the fight against stereotypes, from their own perspective and stories, with the use of radiophonic techniques.
  • To support individuals in acquiring and developing skills and competences that they will be able to use afterwards.
  • To generate radio and media content to raise awareness about discriminations in society with special attention paid to ageism, gender inequalities and other kinds of discriminations such as those based on sexual orientation or origin.
  • To extend and develop the competences of educators and other personnel who support adult learners by providing a complete set of tools to easily reproduce the V.I.T.A. experience with their own groups. We will also provide them with the necessary theoretical background to better address key topics of social empowerment.

 

 

Why this website?

We developed this website in order to share how we organized radio workshops with members of minority groups so that other organizations can set up their own workshops, by getting to know the technics of radio and by learning how to work with a group of people and develop meaningful content for the shows with them. During this project, we were attentive to develop methodologies that would promote the empowerment of the people that we worked with.

In this website, you can also hear the shows that each of the partners of this project produced, so that you can get some idea of what you can produce. Of course, these are just examples, so the shows that you will produce will be very different based on your particular interests.

This website was thought as a self-learning platform, so that you can find everything you need to organize your own radio workshops in an autonomous way. However, if you have any question about the project or simply want to talk to us, don’t hesitate to contact us

Project’s partners

La Xixa Teatre Association is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 that aims to research, develop and multiply educational and theatrical tools as a means for social transformation. They believe that education at all ages is the key for social change towards a world with equal opportunities. They facilitate the creation of empowering spaces through participatory methodologies, process-oriented psychology and Theatre of the Oppressed to generate processes of individual and collective transformation in contexts of social vulnerability.

 

Caritas der Erzdiözese Wien is a non-profit organization with the objective of advocating for the poor and marginalized, addressing their basic needs and taking into consideration their social and cultural background. It operates a wide range of activities: e.g. retirement care, facilities for the handicapped, social assistance, houseless aid, foreign aid, refugee sand migrants relief, as well as community work, inclusive schools and community art projects. The VITA project is coordinated by Stand 129, a Community Arts Project situated on a market site in Vienna’s 10th district. In this very lively and colourful district of Vienna, Stand 129 offers a wide range of cultural events in order to create new networks within the local community. The main target of Stand 129 is to build bridges between different migrant communities, autochthonous Viennese inhabitants and newcomers with the help of art and culture.

 

Radio Activité is an association created in Paris in November 2016. Its purpose is to contribute to the fight against prejudice, to promote solidarity, social inclusion and the dialogue between the inhabitants of the same territory by developing autonomous mobile radio studios. As an itinerant radio association, it offers workshops as a teaching tool to allow everyone to create their own programs. Its members travel to France and abroad in social centers, theaters, jails, festivals and retirement homes. They also travel to refugee camps in France, Georgia, Iraq, Lebanon, Italy and Greece, within the framework of the Microcamp Radio project

 

Élan Interculturel is a non-profit organization based in France which, since its creation in 2008 on the initiative of five immigrant women specialised in psychology, encourages interpersonal exchanges and intercultural dialogue to facilitate communication between people. Through non-formal education, artistic mediation and popular education, Elan seeks to make diversity a wealth and not a threat, participating in the development of a more inclusive society.

Author are exclusively responsible for the contents of this publication. The Commission will not be held accountable for the information here contained or any use made of it.