Milan Partnership Meeting

We’re on our way!

Milan, Italy was the place chosen to host the second meeting of the Our Voices project which took place on the 15th -17th May 2017.  The meeting not only provided us with the chance to catch up with the activities carried out over the last six months in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain or Poland and plan new actions, but also allowed us to review one of the key aspects of the Project: the creation of local stakeholder groups.

These local stakeholder groups include experts and representatives from different fields, that will provide us with different but essential points of view on our progress throughout the project to ensure what we produce are suitable for different communities and purposes across Europe. The stakeholders involved in the project so far include:

•  Organizations who may use curated stories (i.e. services, policy makers, public sector etc.): These currently include representatives from Manchester City Council, Metropolitan City of Milano and Jan Diugosz University.
• Organizations who curate stories (i.e. media organisations etc.): These currently include representatives from the BBC, the Association of Journalists (Spain) and TV Orion.
• Organizations who deliver training (i.e. VET providers etc.): These currently include representatives from Inspiring Communities Together, Polska Rada and Changemakers.
• Organizations who may access curation training (i.e. community organisations/groups, professional bodies etc.): These currently include representatives from Manchester Careers Forum, IYDA, The Institute of Community Reporters and Radio Atlántida TORO.

The first task for our stakeholders will be to inform the design and content of curation training curriculum. The design of this curriculum will be done through a research process that involves assessing three different areas and types of knowledge. The local stakeholder groups will participate in the second and third ones:

1. Context research and analysis: This will involve desk-based research and analysis of existing curation practices and curriculums across Europe.
2. Experiential knowledge: This will be gathered from the existing knowledge of the Partners’, Stakeholder Groups and other training providers and facilitators.
3. Needs assessment: This will be ascertained through consultation with our stakeholder groups, in particular those who use curated content, those who provide training provide in curation and related fields and potential participants of curation training.

The curriculum will be ready in June 2018 and will be tested for the first time over the Summer in Germany. As part of this first pilot, 18 trainers from the partners’ organizations will attend and they then redeliver what they have learned to the communities in which they work. The partnership is keen to see the use of real people’s stories used to inform decision making processes, here’s some stories from our team as to why they are involved in the project:  http://our-voices.eu/stories/