UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Language and Arts

Call for proposals out now!

WORD SPRINGS

What happens when words fail?
Where do new words lead us?
How do words give us a spring in our step?
What are the words for words and the words for spring in many languages?
How can words be a springboard?
How do words describe spring as now?
Where is the refuge in words?
Who makes refuge in words?
What do spaces and silences offer?
Where are the word springs, the sources of newness?
How can words spring us into action?
When do words well up?
How can words work miracles?

The UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts is working on five key ideas. One of those is “enhancing and replicating models for refugee integration by intentional multilingual learning with refugees and with new host communities, in order to foster creativity, diversity of cultural expressions and intercultural capabilities”.

This year, the UNESCO RILA Spring School will link to that idea and will focus on words and languages, on communication and on discourse, on repertoires and on silence. We invite proposals that explore, showcase, celebrate, experiment, teach and share integration practices and research that have language at their heart.

We want to find out more about intercultural communication, about language hierarchies, about discourse and changing meanings of words. We want to learn about new words and language learning, about language loss, about language revival and about multilingual integration processes. We want to hear the word ‘welcome’ in many languages, but we also want to explore what it means when words fail us. We want to learn about the power of poetry, of words that comfort, of the solace of silence. We welcome the languages of music, of dance, of theatre.

At this year’s Spring School, Word Springs, we want to examine our words and work with all of our languages and repertoires, or ways of finding meaning and making meaning together. We are interested in any contribution that brings in linguistic creativity and diversity to inform or learn from multilateral integration and intercultural initiatives.

Sub-topics

• Intercultural capabilities, cultural expressions and linguistic diversity
• Language hierarchies, discourse, meaning making and meaning changing
• Language learning, language loss and language revival
• Silence, words of comfort and finding words
• Intercultural communication through the arts 

Structure of the Spring School

In May, we had an in person gathering in Glasgow, which will now be followed by an online version of the same event in October. We will structure the contributions in set blocks of 5/30/45/60 minutes, and proposals should bear this in mind. We favour contributions that are interactive and innovative over the more traditional presentation format. We are open to most types of interaction at the Spring School, so please be creative!

Examples of ways to contribute

• Workshop – please indicate maximum workable group size, if applicable
• Presentation
• Interview / panel discussion
• Pecha Kucha style presentation – 5 minutes each, these will be grouped into a longer session
• Performance – theatre, dance, song, music, poetry, spoken word, storytelling etc.
• Hackathon/problem solving session – you would get 5 minutes to present your problem, followed by 10 minutes of collective problem solving
• Other –  please be creative!

Submission Process

Please submit a short proposal describing your contribution to unesco-rila@glasgow.ac.uk. If you like forms, you can download the Online Spring School 2024 proposal form here. If you don’t like forms, feel free to send us your proposal in one of the following formats:

• Written description of maximum two sides A4 (11pt Arial)
• Link to an Audio/video recording of maximum 4 minutes

Please include:

• Title of your contribution;
• Which topic(s) of the Spring School your contribution addresses, and how;
• Format and duration of contribution;
• A description of the contribution and its aims;
• Names and organisations of the people involved in your session;
• Any IT, access, language or other requirements

Deadline for submission is midnight on Thursday 25 July 2024!

Timeline

26 June - call opens
25 July - deadline for submission of proposals
Then there will be two weeks of reviews by our team.
13 August - we will let all applicants know if their proposal has been accepted
Accepted candidates will then have two weeks to send us their text and image for in the programme booklet.
26 August - deadline for sending in that info
30 August - full programme comes out and registration starts
7-11 - Online UNESCO RILA Spring School!

Fees and expenses

The Spring School is based on the ethics of sharing and exchange. It is a free event to attend and no speaker fees will be paid. If you have any financial factors that prevent you from presenting or attending, do get in touch and we will look into it.

Venue

The event will take place entirely online through Zoom. Zoom is free software, which you can download here: https://zoom.us/download

Questions/comments

For questions, comments or to discuss your ideas, please contact Bella Hoogeveen in the UNESCO Secretariat at unesco-rila@glasgow.ac.uk