The National Seminar in Italy was held from July 8th to 12th at youth centre Sonoria, in a strongly intercultural area in the suburbs of Florence, jointly organised and led by Fabbrica Europa Association and by Cospe.

Participants were 10 young peer coaches, combining intercultural awareness, experience in peer coaching, and artistic skills: 4 designers and animators trained at the International School of Comics of Florence, and 6 performing, media and visual artists who already participated to previous ROOTS & ROUTES projects.

Trainers and facilitators Maria Omodeo, Pietro Gaglianò, Caterina Poggesi, Francesco Frongia, Silvano Mezzatesta, Jérôme Li-Thiao-Té, Ruben Vandendriessche, accompanied the 10 participants along an intensive programme focused on: role games, physical experiences aimed at increasing the capacity of listening and observing, empathy and openness to diversity, and exchange with the network of local stakeholders for the coming national activities and for future work opportunities. One of the main “red threads” of the week was the preparation of the cluster group proposals and country presentation for the International Summer Academy in Heek (Germany).

In November 2012 the new project “U-CARE – Urban Culture Against Racism in Europe” started, where 11 organisations in 8 countries join forces and pool their knowledge to combine an anti-racist/anti-discrimination peer coaching approach with urban culture and media. Young people with diverse cultural backgrounds (including the national majorities) will be educated in national seminars and an international summer academy 2013 to become U-CARE Junior Coaches. They will empower themselves to spread the message of increasing mutual understanding and combating racism and discrimination.

Coordinator of the project is jfc Medienzentrum (Germany), partner for Italy the Associazione Fabbrica Europa and COSPE. Other partners are ROOTS&ROUTES International, Stichting ROOTS&ROUTES (Netherlands), Mira Media (Netherlands), SmouTh (Greece), Subjective Values Foundation (Hungary), EuroEst (Romania), RIF (France), Brouhaha (United Kingdom).