Starting from Monday, October 23rd, until October 27th, the Extremaduran community will host the final training sessions of the Play/Act project. Following the success of previous sessions in Portugal, Italy, and Budapest, the region will bring together over a dozen national and international students as a culmination of the activities surrounding the placemaking project conducted so far.
On October 20, 2023, over the course of five days, attendees will participate in various sessions and workshops to acquire the necessary knowledge and develop an audiovisual product. Using teaching methodologies such as video narrative, pitching, and storytelling, students will practically and dynamically capture their interventions from a marketing and communication perspective. To achieve this, the University of Extremadura (UEx) and the Youth Leisure Center “El Economato” in Mérida, the venues for this event, will have professors and experts in the field to effectively deliver training. Teachers such as Marino Linaje from the Polytechnic Faculty; Javier Trabadela and José María Pinilla from the Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences of the UEx; as well as Marta Fallola from the Service of Diffusion of Scientific Culture and Felipe de Sande from the Image and Communication Department of the educational institution, will be in charge of the multiple scheduled training sessions on public speaking skills, emotional management, creation of audiovisual pieces, and content design for social media.
Additionally, participants will have guided tours to understand the urban, cultural, and environmental concept of spaces such as the gem of Emérita Augusta, Mérida, or Cáceres, a city holding the title of World Heritage City granted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
This meeting will conclude on Friday, October 27, with a multiplier event at the Economato in Mérida, called “Prototyping to Test,” programmed by Entrepreneurial Culture of the Extremadura Regional Government. The event will be attended by project students, students from the Higher Vocational Training at IES Santa Eulalia, as well as associations from the surrounding area. The participation of authorities such as Esther Muñoz, Director General of the University of Extremadura; Alicia González, Vice-Rector for Students, Employment, and Mobility of the UEx; and Laura Iglesias, Councilor for Youth of Mérida, is expected on this final day.
Play/Act Project
Play/Act is funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union with a budget of €275,596 and a duration until March 2024. It is led by the University of Évora (Portugal) and involves the University of Extremadura and the Ministry of Economy, Science, and Digital Agenda of the Extremadura Regional Government as Spanish representatives. Other participants include Community Impact from Lisbon, Portugal; the Creative Industries Consortium of Matera Hub, representing Italy; and the Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Center or KÉK, based in Budapest.
The project aims to create and develop an interdisciplinary training plan in Higher Education, taking the “New European Bauhaus” initiative as a reference. The proposal involves a process of codesign, cocreation, and adaptation of common urban spaces, engaging students in active processes of promotion, transformation, and innovation of their own community and environment.
For more information about this initiative, you can visit their website: https://playact.eu/
