Telling Stories, Changing Futures
Dutch-Portuguese KA2 Collaboration Project 2024-2025
In a world where over a billion people live with disabilities and nearly one in four young Europeans grow up under the shadow of poverty and social exclusion, the question of inclusion is not just policy—it’s survival. For young people navigating risks, discrimination, and systemic barriers, finding a voice can be transformative. That’s where IncInAct comes in—a youth-centered, transnational project powered by the Erasmus+ Programme, where storytelling isn’t just art, but a tool for empowerment, healing, and change.

At its core, IncInAct is about collaboration: educators, youth workers, and organizations from Portugal and the Netherlands banding together to rewrite what youth work can look like. Through the lens of narrative and creative expression, they are building bridges for vulnerable young people who too often stand on society’s margins.
Why Storytelling?
The project’s foundation lies in a simple truth—stories connect us. For vulnerable youth, such as those with disabilities or in situations of risk, storytelling offers more than just an outlet. It fosters self-expression, self-esteem, empathy, and the courage to be seen and heard. 
Academic studies back this up: narrative-based methodologies increase emotional awareness, strengthen resilience, and even support conflict resolution. In other words, stories are not just tales; they can be lifelines.

With this in mind, IncInAct focuses on training youth workers to harness storytelling as a method of inclusion and development. Through shared workshops, collaborative exchanges, and co-created tools, the project seeks to build a new methodology—one that can travel across borders and cultural contexts, inspiring other youth initiatives worldwide.

The Organizations Behind the Project

Associação Multidisciplinar Essência da Vida (Portugal)

Based in Vila Nova de Gaia, Essência da Vida is a nonprofit devoted to groups who often feel invisible: people with disabilities, the elderly, and youth in fragile situations. Their mission is not just medical rehabilitation through non-invasive therapies, but cultural empowerment. The philosophy is clear—true inclusion requires more than services; it needs creativity, connection, and community.
Essência da Vida’s creative programs range from intergenerational theatre groups to poetry workshops where individuals can reframe painful narratives into empowering stories. They have even developed storytelling book projects in local schools, where children write stories to support peers with disabilities. For them, storytelling is not an extracurricular activity—it is a vehicle of transformation.
Stichting CWM Education (Netherlands)

CWM brings the power of theatre and performing arts into the international arena of youth empowerment. Since 2015, they’ve been training youth workers and young people alike in creative methodologies, particularly theatre as a form of human rights education.

Their projects span from working with refugees at local centers to coordinating international exchanges on topics like racism, LGBTQ+ rights, and domestic violence. Specializing in socially engaged theatre methods such as “Theatre of the Oppressed,” CWM Education empowers young people to confront discrimination and inequality by literally stepping into the spotlight.
Together with Essência da Vida, CWM Education ensures that IncInAct combines mental and emotional well-being strategies with cultural and artistic tools that travel across borders.
The Bigger Picture: What did we aim to achieve?
IncInAct is not just about creating workshops—it’s about creating a movement. By uniting organizations with complementary strengths, the project charts new ground in youth work. The Erasmus+ framework provides the space for such cross-pollination, encouraging European organizations to share ideas, test them in context, and then bring them back stronger.

The expected outcomes of IncInAct include:
  • A Guiding Tool that documents the shared storytelling methodology for future use.
  • A transnational network of empowered youth workers and organizations working together long-term.
  • Youth-produced materials—poems, books, performances—that amplify the voices of vulnerable young people.
  • A deepening of empathy and understanding across communities, fostering social inclusion.
IncInAct has beautifully achieved its mission by weaving together storytelling, collaboration, and inclusion to empower vulnerable youth and build connections across Europe. Through innovative workshops and creative exchanges, young people and youth workers together crafted new narratives—expressing personal experience and triumphs through performances, books, poems, and collaborative creative writing.

A transnational partnership strengthened both organizations: Associação Multidisciplinar Essência da Vida (Portugal) brought healthcare expertise and community creativity, while Stichting CWM Education (Netherlands) contributed deep roots in performing arts and youth empowerment. This collaboration fostered a holistic approach, with each organization sharing methodologies and tools that were tested, refined, and implemented in diverse communities.

With the support of Erasmus+, the outcomes included a practical guiding tool for inclusive youth work, a sustainable international network, and youth-led works that raise awareness far beyond the immediate project. The project didn’t just outperform expectations—it touched lives and demonstrated the beauty and power of inclusion, creativity, and global cooperation in youth development.
Why Now?
The project emerges at a time when European youth face unprecedented challenges, not only from inequality but also from mental health struggles sharpened by social isolation. The statistics are undeniable; the need is urgent. And yet, IncInAct’s answer is as hopeful as it is simple: give young people the tools to tell their own stories, and they will tell us—in vivid, transformative ways—how the world can be better.

As one youth worker reflected during early workshops: “When we listen to their stories, we see the courage that’s already there. Our role is simply to help them recognize it.”

In the end, IncInAct is much more than a project. It is a reminder that inclusion is not optional, diversity is not a burden, and every young person—no matter their circumstance—has a story worth telling, and a future worth believing in.
Stichting CWM Education
cultureworldme@gmail.com
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The Netherlands
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