After a couple of years full of challenges e transformations, 4Change is now ongoing a diagnosis and capacity building process supported by Cidadãos Ativ@s / EEA Grants (managed by Fundação C. Gulbenkian): our team has shared internally and with our partners and educators, the cooperative’s re-thinking process.
We have been a Cultural and Social Cooperative since 2005, but we are also an NGDO working in Global Citizenship and we also offer consultancy work in our stronger areas: participatory methods and qualitative evaluation processes. Our mission, procedures and main strategies are being fine-tuned.
This challenging year was at the same time full with positive results that shape our future:
- A methodology already used by our team – Photovoice/participatory photography – was adapted as a research method for young people to register, think and discuss ‘what is heritage’ and ‘what do we value’ in our communities? This was our basic setting for Museu do Bairro, a project working at the neighbourhood level in each school community of Oeiras district. From the perspective of 200 students aged 11 to 17, 9 exhibitions were produced and viewed by hundreds of locals: not only in the schools but also in the Municipal Market, at Atrium and even in Oeiras Parque Shopping Centre. We are now working with Oeiras Municipality team: Oeiras Educa+ and Oeiras 27, with Culture and Heritage areas – to keep this Museu do Bairro idea alive!
- The exhibition and mupis campaign Namorar à Janela do Mundo, with portraits and stories of life of our senior ladies of Fundação LIGA/Clube Sénior, was on tour since 2021 throughout Lisboa. Is still available to be seen – and we wait for the follow up of this digital skills and empowerment for senior citizens: an application last month for Erasmus+.
- When in Brussels we took the chance to meet GEF – Green European Foundation – and we now return with the confirmation we are going through with Education on Europe’s Community of Practice (supported 2021/2022 by Bosch Foundation). The road is clear!
