SPARK, 2016 - 2018

SPAR, New students in Reykjavik, second partner meeting in Iceland, May 2027

SPAR, on the way to Husavik, second partner meeting in Iceland, May 2027

SPAR, at the hotel on the way to Husavik, second partner meeting in Iceland, May 2027

SPAR, Husavik Academic Center, office for second partner meeting in Husavik, May 2027

SPAR, at the Whale Museum in Husavik, second partner meeting in Iceland, May 2027

SPAR, on whale watching tour in Husavik bay, second partner meeting, May 2027

Nordplus SPARK, 2016 - 2018

Interfolk was Coordinator of the Nordplus Adult Development project: "Curricula and training for culture volunteers in sparsely populated areas” (SPARK), Aug 2016 - July 2018.

Key output

The partnership circle

included 5 partners from 4 Nordic - baltic countries, representing a transnational sum of varied expertise and experiences in the field, which we could not find in just one of the participating countries.

Background and need

During the last years, we have seen more political and public interest for reviving the rural and sparsely populated areas in the Baltic Sea Region as well as in the wider European community. A few steps to revive the villages and remote areas have among other countries already been taken in a Danish context, but progress is slow, and the models for how it is done, is not described.

Sparsely populated areas face major challenges to revive the local communities and promote housing and employment, but they also represent an opportunity to rebuild a community and strengthen local identity through artistic and cultural activities. A splendid example of what makes culture strong and sustainable in remotely areas has been documented in the report by Francois Matarasso "Stories and Fables - Reflections on culture development in Orkney" (commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise), where a strong ethos of volunteering and working together combined with the natural archaeological and historical assets of the islands have helped to revive the local communities.

This and other examples indicate that voluntary art and culture associations can play a major role to make our marginal areas more attractive to new residents, tourism and businesses, because:

To secure cultural sustainability, we need to strengthen the “citizen help citizen" or "peer to peer approach", where civil society associations from the cross-cultural sector of amateur arts, voluntary culture, heritage and cultural centres are engaged;
To develop innovative ways of outreach to citizens active in arts and culture to become resourceful volunteers (culture boosters) in cross-cultural activities in the local Communities;
To develop high quality learning opportunities tailored to these groups to learn how to initiate and organise local cultural activities with an added value for civic participation and community bonding;
To develop the know-how and abilities of the voluntary associations in this cross-cultural sector to support the volunteers and their cooperation with local stakeholders to initiate enlivening arts and culture opportunities in the local communities.

Aim and objectives

The overall aim is to provide new competences for culture volunteers in sparsely populated areas to provide cross-disciplinary arts and culture opportunities for the local communities with an added value for civic participation, community bonding and local identity.

The objectives are

To provide local surveys with mapping of best practise and competences of local culture volunteers in sparsely populated areas.
To present the core competence profiles and deduce the essential curricula in a Nordic multilateral report.
To develop high quality learning opportunities tailored to citizens engaged in arts and culture on how to initiate and organise local cultural activities with an added value for civic participation and community bonding.
To develop and test the curricula and course frames with a series of national pilot courses in each partner country.
To publish a multilateral Curricula Compendia on core competences and training methodologies for future culture volunteers in sparsely populated areas.
To disseminate the results to the wider Nordic- Baltic community by use of news-mails, social media, articles in own and other media, presentations in own and other events and launching of a new project portal and concluding multiplier events.

Aim and innovative elements

The aim is to bridge social capital and to promote inclusion, cohesion and trust by strengthening the participatory and co-creative culture activities in the European sector of amateur arts, voluntary culture and heritage.

Our development work did focus on bridging social capital in the following five contexts of culture activities and lifelong learning: inter-social, inter-generational, inter-regional, inter-cultural, and inter-European. Thereby, we intend to strengthen new participatory culture and co-creation activities, where the learning context are changed not only from individual creativity to collective creativity, but to bridge people normally outside of each other’s direct social networks - not just bonding social capital between similar subgroups of individuals, but bridging former segregated social groups.

More information

Task plan

FIRST PHASE: PREPARE THE DEVELOPMENT WORK - 6 MONTHS
1) Start-up management. Aug - Sept 2016. IF
2) First 2-day partner meeting in Copenhagen, DK. Sept 2016. MOF
3) Mapping Best practise of culture boosters. Sept - Nov 2016. IF
4) Publish Multilateral Competence Report, PDF-ed. Nov 2016 - Jan 2017. MOF

SECOND PHASE: DEVELOPMENT WORK - 12 MONTHS
5) Develop curricula for culture boosters. Feb - April 2017. TFHS
6) Second partner meeting in Husavik, IS. May 2017. HAC
7) Test national pilot courses. May – ultimo Nov 2017. HAC
8) Publish Curricula Report, multilingual PDF-ed. Nov 2017 - March 2018. IF

THIRD PHASE: VALORISE THE RESULTS - 6 MONTHS
10) Complete five national conferences. Jan - April 2018. FSU
9) Third partner meeting, May 2018 in Helsinki. FSU
11) Final dissemination of project results. April - June 2018. FSU

WHOLE PERIOD: TRANSVERSAL WORK - 24 MONTHS

12) Dissemination, whole period. Aug 2016 - July 2018. MOF
13) Evaluation, whole period, Aug 2016 - July 2018. TFHS
14) Project Management, whole period, Aug 2016 - July 2018. IF