Hi-Story Telling is a project funded by the European Erasmus+ programme articulated in the two-year period 2020-2022 in Italy, Portugal and Spain with meetings, training activities, audiovisual productions, shows and events.

The general objective is to promote the interest and learning of history and cultural heritage especially in young people by creating a special methodology based on the use of the Theatre and, more generally, Storytelling.

Hi-Story Telling is curated by a transnational partnership consisting of:

• Compagnia Teatrale portoghese ASTA (lead company based in Covilhã, Portugal): aasta.info;
• Associazione Nuovi Linguaggi (Loreto, Italia): nuovilinguaggi.net;
• Treinta & Cuatro. Emotional Performance SC (Mairena del Aljarafe, Spain).

In addition to these associations, collaborating on the project are:

• ASEDEM – Spanish Association of Emotional Education (Seville, Spain): asociacionasedem.org;
• AIM – Association of Intercultural Mediation (Cluj-Napoca, Romania): aimromania.eu.

In most stories of personal growth, pleasure and sense of history are acquired at a mature age while as young people history is largely perceived as a largely fictitious topic to study at school, without any practical use in life.

The fact is that it is not just about “studying” history!

It is a question of knowing how to savour it, of being able to perceive how each of us is the product of history with a capital “H” when we live our stories with the lowercase “h”; to realise that we are the product of our country’s past, as well as the history and traditions of our region and the place where we were born and/or where we live; to realise that we are the product of our “family tree”, as well as our family and individual history.

It is about walking down the street and understanding a neighbourhood, a building, an area like the “theatre” that history has made available to our personal history.

What is at stake is not only the simple ability to be fascinated by the past, but also the ability to understand the value of our common cultural heritage. If you do not “feel” the charm of history and the intimate connection that exists between each of us and our roots, you will not feel the charm and importance of preserving it.

Our mission is to study and protect the past in order to secure a future, and this task can only be achieved through investments in the future, that is to say, in young people. They will be the leaders of tomorrow and must acquire, before being distracted by the routine of life, the awareness of the treasures among which they were incredibly lucky to be born and grow. We believe that this project will also enable educators and youth policy-makers to understand how the world of young people is available for serious, philologically correct and culturally very refined conversations. The answer will make us understand the strategic value of such a way of working, because it is a way of bringing our young citizens, the leaders of tomorrow, into a heritage that must be felt by them as a significant part of their history. The mature citizen with this youthful experience will no longer see the archaeological or monumental complex as something foreign or dead in his city and in his life, because in his youth he will have learned to ask questions such as: How was it done? Why was it done? For what purpose? How was it useful for those who built it and for those who benefited from it? This is the best guarantee to preserve the enormous heritage we have received from our ancestors and turn it into a realised cultural heritage.

Youth empowerment is a complex phenomenon that includes aspects of various kinds and that affects not only the educational field, but the entire social context. During adolescence and in the youth period more generally, the person builds his own identity and identifies the roots that contextualize it, but often his socio-cultural background turns out to be medium-low, poor in stimuli and opportunities. The inconstancy, vivacity and variability of the attitudes of today’s generation of young people are related to their magmatic personality referring to the new paradigms of the times we live in. The provision of education must therefore increasingly be based on non-formal methods and tools to achieve success in any field of learning: education, vocational training …

We therefore wanted to propose a project in line with the political priorities of the programmes that promote youth empowerment by focusing on History and Cultural Heritage with a view to active citizenship, identity and European values. To do this we thought of using the Theatre as one of the most powerful tools to increase the specific interest of young people. All activities and products will be realized with a view to establishing useful experiences and tools for youth workers who represent key actors in the process of empowerment of the new and future generations.

In particular, there are research activities, training and production of curricula and guidelines aimed at establishing reference tools and methodologies. In parallel with the activities described, further lines of action are planned with awareness-raising, networking and dissemination actions involving a docufilm, multiplier events, twinning with other European projects, conferences and much more.