On the 18th of June, Lusófona University hosted the second Youth Workshop, with the theme Translation. The aim was to empower young people to innovate youth work in the field of translation, editing written content, and collaborative work in language learning.

The trainer was Professor Anabela Mateus, who has been working in the area for 30 years and is a researcher in the Storyline Project. Her vast experience in both translation and teaching created the perfect environment to help the young trainees to develop new skills.

As for the first Youth Workshop, due to Covid-19 safety rules, the workshop was online, but everyone enjoyed it very much!  

On the 13th of March, Lusófona University hosted the first Youth Workshop, with the theme
Storytelling. The workshop was oriented for youth between the age of 16 to 29, who have interest in
cultural heritage and social inclusion matters, journalism and language learning.

The aim of the workshop was to provide skills in storytelling. To achieve that goal, we invited the
journalist Mónica Menezes, who thought the youth about the power of the stories, and in-house
Professor Carla Sousa, who taught the youth about inclusive interview techniques.

The Covid-19 Pandemic didn’t allow us to meet in person, however with the effort and dedication of
both the youth and the trainers, the workshop on Storytelling was a success!

Project presentation
Getting to know each other through digital tools
Social media to hold creative writing activities
The importance of culture to increase involvement levels in language learning
Non-formal education practice sessions
Constanta treasure hunt (via mAPP My Europe, recently finished Erasmus+ project APP for Android and iPhone)
Use of audiovisual material
History, culture trips and outdoor activities
Group dynamics
Organised meals and traditional Romanian dinner
Intercultural dinner
Youth involvement in training activities
Utilization of texts from STORYLINE with teaching purposes
Development of lesson plans
Discussion on strengths and weaknesses of different educational approaches
Online resources presentations

Youthpass ceremony During the 7 days of training, we hosted youth workers from #Spain, #Portugal and #Romania in Constanta to share good practices and knowledge on #storytelling, #digitalization, #nonformaleducation and #languagelearning. For more info, visit

https://storylineproject.eu/ Looking forward to attending future trainings and meetings!

#Storyline #HEI #DezvoltamIdei #Training #EU #ErasmusPlus

House of Education and Innovation – HEI facilitated two workshops in Constanța, Romania, via Zoom to make the young volunteers, carrying out the interviews and writing in STORYLINE, get to know each other, find out more details about the project and learn the key tips and tricks to bring their talent into the local community.

During the two-days workshop, the participants learned about adapting texts to language levels and storytelling through non-formal education activities. The young volunteers who attended the workshops, were told as well the guidelines for future steps leading to the end of the writing and adapting process. The 2-days workshop took place on the 17th and 18th of April. On the 17th, we focused on digital storytelling, while on the 18th, the participants attended a a creative writing and adaptation workshop.

We are happy to see how STORYLINE is making the young community of Constanța be active, involved and create bonds with other elder locals through storytelling and the discovery of the city’s roots!

While originally storytelling emerged as a form of passing on cultural heritage and other teachings, this project uses this concept as a bridge between the youth and the elder. The project facilitates the dialogue between locals and expats, the young and the elder communities, in order to raise awareness on the importance of community’s cooperation for the achievement of social prosperity.

The stories will be selected, edited and adapted to different levels of reading material for young learners (beginner, intermediate and advanced). The youth will also be involved in the editing and translating process of adapting the stories. The adapted stories will be collected by HEI and PHOART and will be organized in the StorytellingHUB – a platform for language learning, and an eBook. The eBook will also comprise good practices in language learning as developed during the youth workers’ trainings. Therefore, the youth are encouraged to get to know better the elder and disadvantaged communities of their cities and to give visibility to their past by turning their stories into language learning material for other European youngsters.

Moreover, out of the 63 stories available on the HUB, 12 of them will be transformed into Virtual reality “escape rooms”. This game will be called “EscapeStory Sphere” and will be an interactive language-learning game which promotes cultural heritage and storytelling as a way to learn about a language and a culture. The game will be available free, online, and can be used with VR glasses or without, by using a laptop, phone or tablet.

The project’s main aim is to encourage intercultural and intergenerational connections and promotion of cultural heritage and exchanges through storytelling and language learning.