ASSOCIAZIONE INTERCULTURALE NUR

descrizione dell'organizzazione

Origins
Associazione Interculturale NUR is a non profit association established in 1999 and active in the field of intercultural integration, promoting and realizing cultural events, training experiences and informative seminars for the youth in Sardinia.
Between 1997 and 1999 our founding members already made a wonderful experience writing and running as volunteers of the association FILEF Sardegna (Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Emigranti e Famiglie) an ambitious EVS project that later was awarded the 2005 European Youth Award as best EVS project in Europe.

Vision
From that experience came the inspiration of setting up a brand new association devoted to specifically fighting the cultural isolation affecting the youth of Sardinia through intercultural experiences of mobility and non formal education. The main focus being in the use and promotion of interculturality, mutual understanding between different cultures and of solidarity as tools to overcome nationalism and isolation.

Mission
Our association operates through:
- the promotion of exchanges between cultures;
- making youth international mobility as accessible and inclusive as possible, with a special focus on bringing information to young people from isolated smaller rural villages;
- the fight against all forms of racism and xenophobia and the promotion of solidarity and empathy as basic human values;
- fostering the recognition of the competencies built through experiences of non formal education;
- promoting a peaceful and reciprocally enriching integration of migrants in the Italian society.

Activity
Our regular activities in the youth field range from local non-formal education projects aimed at a target of quite young (10-15 years old) kids from rather small villages of the most rural areas of Sardinia, promoting the basic principles of interculturality, citizenship, solidarity and youth active participation, to projects based on youth mobility experiences (mostly volunteering, Youth exchanges, mobility for Youth Workers and Training Courses and so on) aimed at an older target (13-35 years old), more usually finding our participants in isolated communities, but also including students at the local University of Cagliari or youth workers from the local network of partnerships we've built over time. The common thread behind most of our projects is the use of creativity as the main tool to reach our goals; so, be it photography, videomaking, creative writing, theatre, radio or any other mean to express yourself, we'll try to use it in our projects. Another strong focus of ours is on media literacy and developing digital skills: besides pioneering in the EVE (Erasmus+ Virtual Exchanges) sector in Italy with our 2018-19 project Pathways to Youth Leadership, and having specialized in creating and delivering online-based learning activities on many platforms throughout the years, we are also involved since 2019 in the Cities and Regions of Learning network, acting as lead partners for the Metropolitan City of Cagliari and promoting badge-based learning and recognition of non-formal education.
Since 2003 some of our staff members have constantly been involved in EVS and then ESC centralized training events in Italy as part of the trainers team planning and delivering TEC events.
We also have a strong interest in language training and social inclusion projects for immigrants, applying skills built in over 20 years of EVS, in a hosting, sending and training capacity. Since 2009 we have regularly taken part in the management and implementation of projects financed under the framework of the European Fund for the Integration of non-EU immigrants (EFI, now FAMI) and other locally funded integration projects.
Since 2003 we are local partners of the University for Foreigners of Perugia for the certification of knowledge of Italian as a second language (CELI).

Target group
Considering the goals and methods of our association, we can define our main target group as youngsters between the age of 13 and 35. We also aim a good 30% of our activities at promoting the inclusion of foreign citizens and immigrants, however, and some specific activities at empowering other youth workers from our local partnership network. Some of our local activities in rural areas are also often aimed at elderly people, to try and encourage an intergenerational exchange of knowledge.

Volunteering project