Details
Project Reference: 101246529
Programme: Erasmus+
Start date: 01-12-2025
End date: 30-11-2027
Key Action: Partnerships for cooperation and exchanges of practices
Action Type: Capacity Building in the field of Youth
Countries covered: 7
Summary
Mental-health stigma arises from misinformation, fear, and negative societal attitudes, leading to discrimination and social exclusion. ROLES aims to equip youth workers, trainers, facilitators, mentors, and NFE professionals with practical art-based methodologies to tackle mental health stigma and strengthen youth workers’ resilience. The integration of expressive, creative, experiential techniques, including theatre, role-playing and somatic methods into non-formal education will capacitate youth professionals with tools to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions around mental health, thus fostering inclusive youth work practices and empathy. Through intensive capacity-building activities that delve deep into both theory and practice, youth professionals will gain hands-on experience in using the arts as a powerful tool for engagement, advocacy, and mental-health de-stigmatization in youth work, through practical implementation, locally and internationally.
ROLES brings together EU and Western Balkan partners from different realities to exchange expertise and diverse perspectives on art-based techniques and methods, ensuring a cross-border transfer of knowledge and enhancing the skills of youth professionals across different cultural and social contexts. This approach will create a sustainable impact by expanding the network of trained professionals who can continue to integrate art-based methods into their work, breaking down stigma and promoting mental health awareness among young people.
The project’s key objectives include increasing the pool of competent and resilient youth professionals that support youth communities, empowering young participants, including those with fewer opportunities, and creating sustainable resources for long-term impact. This holistic approach seeks to create a supportive network of youth workers, that extends beyond the project, fostering positive change in the attitudes of mental health within their local youth communities.
Coordinator:
UNITED SOCIETIES OF BALKANS – Greece
Partners:
ALBANIAN CENTER FOR EDUCATION CARE AND TRAINING ACT CENTER – Albania
FUNDACJA SEMPRE A FRENTE – Poland
INICIJATIVA MLADIH ZA LJUDSKA PRAVA – Montenegro
HODINA H – Czechia
TEATRO METAPHORA – ASSOCIACAO DE AMIGOS DAS ARTES – Portugal
UDRUZENJE AGENCIJA LOKALNE DEMOKRATIJE IZ MOSTARA – Bosnia & Herzegovina