The Europe Challenge

We are writing to you from the neighbourhood centre ‘Casa Gavoglio’ in Genoa, Italy. We are a public space with an intercultural library full of books in all languages and many illustrated books without words.

Perhaps you will remember this beautiful video that ECF made about our library. We are very proud of it: it reminds us that even a small library, with little money and in a difficult neighbourhood, can make a difference.

At our library, we run one or two courses each year as part of the Erasmus Adult Education programme. These trainings are a way for us to network, get to know partners who share our goals, and lay the groundwork for future projects. We have been doing this since 2019 with organisations from Poland, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Croatia, Ukraine and Romania.

Here is our proposal: we would like to organise a course for adult education staff (librarians, project managers, educators, facilitators) in Genoa, at a time to be agreed upon together (probably in the spring of 2027), using the opportunity offered by the Erasmus programme under KA120 and 122 – ADU adult mobility.

Thanks to this opportunity, any organisation active in the field of adult education can apply for a grant to cover travel, accommodation, organisational support and course registration fees. The next deadline for applying for these funds is 19 February (you can find all the information here). Our goal is to bring together a group of people from different organisations. 

The course that we are offering is dedicated to libraries and cultural and community centres is called: “How Do You Feel? The Power of Silent Books”. Silent Books are illustrated books without written text, suitable for all ages: intercultural, profound, intense.

Our small library is full of these books: we took inspiration from the work of IBBY International and Italy, which are using them as intercultural tools, where everyone, regardless of the language they speak, can read a story and attribute meaning to it. Symbols of peace within libraries and places where no one is a stranger.

Over the years, we have used them with people experiencing many different situations: migration, war, prison, mental health issues, and challenging life stories. Each of these books has been a window into their lives.

Starting from these illustrated stories, thanks to The Europe Challenge, we have created a toolkit on mental health that you can find here for free download, and we are now continuing to develop and expand it within other projects.

Through the training course we offer, we want to share with you methods and approaches for working with these books and build collaborative projects together, to grow this work in Erasmus or other international programmes.

If you are interested in this proposal and would like to receive more information, please fill in the form below (it will only take you a few minutes).

Warm regards from Genoa and the Casa Gavoglio neighbourhood centre!