Poiesis project materials are now available for download
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
Between 2024 and 2026, three European organisations — IRARU (Austria/Spain), Creative Art Farm in Italy (CAFI), and the Alba Eglesia Foundation (Romania) — worked together on Poiesis: Expressive Arts for Youths, a project funded through the EU's Erasmus+ programme (project code 2024-1-AT01-KA210-YOU-000250426).
Poiesis aimed to promote the inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities and to improve their mental and emotional well-being through Expressive Arts: drawing, painting, writing, photography and other artistic forms used as tools for healing and transformation. Each partner adapted the methodology to its own context: IRARU worked with migrant and refugee communities in Austria, Alba Eglesia focused on cultural heritage and minority inclusion in Romania, and CAFI centred on art and environmental sustainability in rural Italy.
Over these two years, the project included a kick-off meeting in Montepulciano (Italy), a transnational meeting in Viscri (Romania), training sessions for facilitators, more than 60 hours of pilot workshops across Austria, Romania and Italy, and closing dissemination events in Vienna, Montepulciano and Viscri.
Three resources to download and reuse
Now that the project is reaching its final stretch, IRARU has made the three main outcome documents publicly available:
Replication Toolkit: brings together case studies from the pilot workshops and details on how implementation unfolded in each country, meant to help other organisations replicate the experience.
Facilitator's Guide: aimed at anyone wanting to run similar workshops, with practical guidance for leading expressive-arts sessions with young people at risk of exclusion.
Poiesis Methodology: lays out the theoretical framework and background behind the whole project, grounded in the Expressive Arts Therapy approach.
All three documents are free and openly accessible, designed so that other organisations, youth groups and cultural workers can apply this proven method within their own communities.
