From 12 – 15 May, 24 young people from 8 different language regions came together to celebrate their languages in the Balearic Islands, Spain. After entering the ECCA competition earlier this year, the young people aged 14 to 17 years old along with their teachers, joined the ECCA campus, part of the European Charter Classroom Activities (ECCA) project. The project aims to show young Europeans the value of having more than one language.
ECCA rap
During the ECCA campus the young people followed a language focused itinerary by taking part in various activities. Besides hiking, following an Improvisation Theatre workshop and celebrating a music night with music in their own languages, one of the activities was to produce a multilingual rap. The rap ‘this is my language’ has been recorded and produced by a local Catalan company (@swingmallorca @andrewbflatvega) and can be heard on: www.thisismylanguage.eu.
The project leader of the ECCA campus Ypie Boersma (province of Fryslân) said: “I guess in the whole world this is the only existing rap in our 8 languages: Welsh, Frisian, Hungarian, Ruotsinsuomi, Catalan, Basque, Ladin and Friulian. For me it was really great to see that while having fun with each other, young people from all over Europe could experience that they really are able to cross borders with their own language.”
MoJo
Besides producing a rap during the ECCA campus the participants followed the Mobil Journalist (MoJo) workshop. They created a news item for representatives in Europe about what should be done for their language. The Catalan representatives from Andorra, Cerni Roig, Esther Claveri and Carla Iglesias mentioned in their MoJo video that they would like their language not to be seen as a minority language. Catalan is the official language in Andorra and spoken by 10 million through 4 European countries. Esther Claveria: “Catalan is an essential part of our life. We don’t like to think that we are smaller than other languages because we don’t feel like that.”
ECCA project
Through the European Charter Classroom Activities (the ECCA project), schools can work on activities from the European Charter for Regional Languages or Minority languages in the classroom. The ECCA project aims to develop classroom activities to bring young people and teachers from different language regions closer together. The ECCA project is made possible by a grant through the Network to Promote Language Diversity (NPLD) and contributions from the participating NPLD partners.
Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity
The NPLD is a European wide network, working in the field of language policy and planning for languages across Europe. NPLD’s members include governments both national and regional, universities and associations. The ECCA project is specifically made possible by the following partners: Province of Trento/Ladin Cultural Institute “majon di fascegn”, Agjenzie Regjonâl pe Lenghe Furlane (ARLeF), Partium Christian University, Xarxa Vives d’Universitats, Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Welsh Government, Stockholm University and the Province of Fryslân.
For further information or to contact a representative from your region directly, please get in touch with the project leader, Ypie Boersma, y.boersma@fryslan.frl +31 615855947. For more information about the ECCA project visit www.thisismylanguage.eu
The following schools participated in this first ECCA campus: Scola Ladina de Fascia, Istituto Statale di Istruzione Superiore “Magrini Marchetti”, Ady Endre Higschool, Escola Andorrana de Batxillerat, Salesianos Barakaldo, Ysgol Garth Olwg, Sverigefinska skolan and CSG Bogerman Balk.