PROJECT TITLE: Wheelpedia
COUNTRIES: Balkan countries and Turkey
OVERALL OBJECTIVE: To offer an innovative learning experience at the intersections of education, mobility and digital media and to give the opportunity to the participating students to simultaneously record and share their experience on social networks in the form of text, voice, image and video, hence reproducing their learning experience to the benefit of collective knowledge.
ACTIVITIES:
The “Union bus” with thirty students coming from the faculties of law, economics and public administration of the partner Universities in the project, came from Rome to Athens through Parma, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Brcko, Sarajevo, Podgorica, Tirana, Skopje, Sofia, Bucharest, Istanbul and Thessaloniki, and with additional stopovers at places of natural and cultural value.
During the journey, the students attended lectures and participated in debates and workshops at the partner Universities on the theme of public law and culture infused by the distinctive perspective towards EU Enlargement of each city they passed by, visited places characteristic of the contemporary cultural scene, tasted the local cuisine and generally got acquainted with the daily life and traditions of the citizens.
In addition, at each stopover at the selected cities, the students engaged in the activities of the project aimed at raising their awareness and familiarization, but at the same time the arrival of the bus with the students at these cities initiated the beginning of local awareness activities on the EU Enlargement targeting the public.
With the use of mobicases (devices founded by Public Art Lab), the students, functioning themselves as independent media units, documented in the form of videos, photos, narratives and recordings, throughout the journey, evidence of six themes, namely, ethics, urbanism, social inclusion, digital access, environment and youth, founded in the visited places.
The bus operated as a campaign bus for EU Enlargement, a vehicle promoting dialogue and mutual understanding among its passengers – students and citizens of the EU, candidate and potential candidate countries – as well as between its passengers and other students and citizens of the EU, candidate and potential candidate countries.
The journey offered in a way a multi- layered intercultural dialogue. The bus route represented a free movement of people within a union of states, the group of students a multicultural community, and possibly a microcosm of an enlarged EU, and the bus the environment where intercultural dialogue was encouraged. Targeting countries that are old EU Member States, new EU Member States and candidate and potential candidate countries to the EU, regionally associated, was meant for having four degrees of EU integration and, hence, invite the students to contemplate the process of integration and the similarities and differences found within four broad sociopolitical environments defined by this process. Focusing on the city as the space for observation of the correlations between public law and culture, as well as their effect on the concepts of identity and community in view of legal and cultural integration of European values, was chosen because the city is considered as the most receptive space to change and as the most evident of it.
The road trip with its inherent mobility, constant change of environments and demands for rapid adaptation contributed to the participants’ perception of the closeness of the visited countries and cities and significantly contributed to their immediate contemplation of finding the similarities and differences among them, a perpetual intercultural dialogue. In addition, the travelling component, challenging the notion of attachment contributed to the participants’ openness to different environments, tolerance and understanding.
Finally, through this process, all students recognized the importance of European values for peace, stability and prosperity in the region, and therefore spontaneously and very early on adopted the role of ambassadors of EU Enlargement in SEE. The establishment of bonds among young people from the EU Member States, candidate and potential candidate countries, situated on SEE, based on mutual appreciation and acceptance, was the action’s most essential achievement.
FUNDING AGENCY: EPLO and European Commission
LEADER: EPLO
PARTNERS: University of Rome Tor Vergata Faculty of Economics, the University of Parma, the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law, the University of Zagreb Faculty of Law, the University of Sarajevo School of Economics and Business, the Union University Law School Belgrade, the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration of Romania - Faculty of Public Administration, the University of Istanbul Faculty of Law, the New Bulgarian University Jean Monnet Center of European Politics, Department of Political Sciences, the Iustinianus Primus-University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Law, the European University of Tirana Faculty of Law, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the University of Cyprus, the University of Prishtina Faculty of Law, the University of Montenegro and Public Art Lab.
TIME FRAME: 2011-