RecyclArt: projectual creative recycling to pay back the environment

RecyclART is an Erasmus+ project in the Adult Education section, which aims to develop a transnational innovative learning programme for the promotion of activities on recycling waste among ADULTS, firstly developing and secondly exploiting their creativity to recycle and upcycle.

RecyclART https://www.recyclartproject.eu, realized during 2021-2023, developed the creativity of learners by encouraging them to use unwanted materials, activating the learners' skills to be effective in problem-solving, thinking creatively, gaining aesthetic value, self-evaluating, and self-recognition.

Partners are 6 Organizations from Greece, Albania, Italy, Poland, Romania. Our partners in this project are OIKIPA, PROMIMPRESA, DIEK Agriniou, AESD.

The project focuses on the following priorities:

• Skills development and inclusion through innovative learning, creativity, and arts
• Environmental and climate goals
• Supporting the setting up of and access to upskilling pathways

This project deals with two dimensions of creative recycling, occasional creative recycling and Projectual creative recycling. Occasional activity relates to recycling and reusing with no project behind. Projectual creative recycling is a systematic activity of recycling and reusing.

InSET had an active role in showing the ability and expertise in realizing studies and research, seminars, and training that contribute to creating innovative models and designing and supporting sustainable policies on local and central levels. The project deliverables were:

• Deliver the study on “Best practices on Occasional creative recycling among ADULTs,” - ALBANIA Report
• Research in Social Enterprise issues related to recycling through Art
• Offering new knowledge to the public sector, to improve strategies related to employment and social enterprise in the field of recycling
• Foster some expected outcomes such as the increase of businesses in the field of recycling through art, increase of social impact
• Raised participation of young people in actions related to environmental protection through training in projectual creative recycling through art.
• Dissemination of outputs of the project through the newsletter
• Foster networking and partnership among partners in the days of Transnational Project Meeting in Albania.
• Creating the next generation leaders in Social enterprises, civil society, and governance through environmental issues discussion and especially on recycling

RecyclART develops creative skills of Long-term unemployed adults. They are encouraged to use waste materials by using skills such as problem-solving, thinking creatively, gaining aesthetic value, self-evaluating, and self-recognition. Art therapy methods are promoted, to include communities at risk of marginalization. Adult educators using creative methodologies and artists working or having worked with recycling and the realization of new objects using waste are involved to mentor adult learners.

RecyclART reaches the Long-term unemployed adults through job centers and relevant services supporting access to the labor market.

Recycling activities, especially through Art, can create a strong base for social enterprises, which main aim is to address challenges through an enterprising approach. The challenge of unemployment among adults can be addressed by including in the labor market the communities at risk and marginalization. One of the aims is to create employment, especially in terms of Social entrepreneurs who can be agents of positive change. In the case of recycling through art, the unemployed adults will develop businesses which trade for an environmental purpose. They learn through RecyclART how to create jobs and bring hope to the most disadvantaged communities, delivering social, environmental, and economic value. Through their innovative approaches to reduce inequalities, social enterprises in recycling might even provide a model for rebalancing the control of money and power in the recycling industry.

In this aspect, the project not only delivers the adequate trainings but especially fosters innovative methods for recycling using ART:

1. Support training activities to raise their creativity through recycling activities, in order to develop fundamental skills to re-enter the job market;
2. Enhance the sense of initiative, sense of responsibility, self-confidence, and self-efficacy of the unemployed through the training activity in order to stimulate their commitment. These are also skills related to entrepreneurship.
3. Give an Innovative approach among partners and adult learners to recycling and reusing activities;
4. Give tools and key competencies related to “projectual creative recycling”
5. Supply Learning materials to foster the improvement of skills on the topic of projectual creative recycling

Project Activities

• InSET on 9-11 June 2022, conducted the career-focused workshop RecyclArt Workshop Tirana, about recycling through art. Creativity and arts expand the ability to interact with the world and provide a new set of skills for self-expression, understanding, and communication. This also proved valuable for long-term unemployed adults, who need to be able to take a new perspective on their circumstances and be driven to develop alternative solutions regarding their professional realization. And this is where the recyclART methodology comes into play. #recyclART works on the affinity between "RECYCLING MATERIALS" and "REINVENTING YOURSELF".

During the workshop, all participants were posed on a concrete approach to applying recycleArt, in an Atelier and the owner worked on recycling. The participants further developed their recycling activity, preparation of materials and design, work with materials, and design.

Projectual Creative Recycling can be seen as a different approach to recycling: the starting point is no longer the waste material, but the need from which the idea of recycling arises. The flow goes as follows: NEED → PROJECT → WASTE → NEW OBJECT

Long-term unemployed people have the need to find new Job Opportunities. Starting from this NEED, the #RecyclART methodology guides long-term unemployed adults through a self-driven PROJECT to explore their skills, competencies, and values.

• InSET organized the 3rd Transnational Project Meeting of the project, in Tirana on 6 and 7 July 2022. The meeting has been developed onsite mostly and for several partners online through the Google meeting platform. Participants from OIKIPA, PROMIMPRESA, FRAME, DIEK Agriniou, AESD, and InSET as well as FRAME from Poland (online) were together for 2 intensive days starting with IO2 Workshop Results and introduction of their guest who shared their experience and group reflection on the IO2. The trainer of InSET was present to share the ideas for further development of the project in Albania and the Balkans, increasing awareness of recycling through art.