Watershed Media Centre successful under Youth in Action

The Watershed Media Centre has been recently granted funding by the European Commission under the Youth in Action programme, for launching ENGAGE, a project supporting twenty youth workers from the UK, Germany, Greece and Denmark addressing the challenge of working with young people as participants and cultural producers in Europe. In Europe today, young people are producing and consuming new media at an unprecedented rate, claiming the role of the future European culture. Yet, those not digitally included may be socially excluded. Policy makers want to promote media literacy and ICT to improve the citizen’s quality of life for citizens, social participation and cohesion.

Within the project, participants will 1) explore, test and apply accessible digital tools to extend and enhance young people’s engagement within European society, 2) develop innovative approaches to youth engagement enabling creative exploration through digital technology, 3) share best practice, 4) develop skills to become effective digital communicators and 5) develop new technology-enabled approaches which will support young people to become active and engaged European citizens.

The Watershed Media Centre in Bristol is the lead partner of this project, which fosters cultural exchange and promotes engagement, diversity and participation in media arts and the creative economy. Watershed is a member of Europa Cinemas working with cultural venues, industry festivals and media institutes across Europe. Through initiatives like the Pervasive Media Studio, it supports and promotes research and knowledge exchange between the creative, computing and communications sectors. In 2009, Watershed was named as an example of best practice for fostering creativity and innovation by the DG Education and Culture in the context of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation.