creACTIV – Culture in Vocational Training and Apprenticeships in Lower Austria

The arts education project “creACTIV – Culture in Vocational Training in Lower Austria”, initiated by the association Youth and Culture Wiener Neustadt in cooperation with KulturKontakt Austria, has been running art and culture workshops at the 19 vocational schools of the federal province Lower Austria since the 2012/2013 school year.

Every school year, about 40 workshops are offered in various artistic disciplines. Every workshop is hosted by a local artist or culture professional. In the workshop, the hosts join together with the trainees to develop and realize an artistic project – in art forms including architecture, theatre, music, film, design, acting, dance, graffiti, audio plays, literature, and animated film. The objective is to motivate apprentices to participate in cultural activities on their own initiative by capturing their interest and involving them in communicative exchange with people working in the fields of art and culture, taking the apprentices’ own working and living circumstances as the point of departure.

By addressing issues such as social action, teamwork, and creativity, this programme cultivates important key competences that will also serve the apprentices in their professional careers.

The project was preceded by sporadic art workshops for apprentices under the aegis of the “K3 – Cultural Education for Apprentices” programme of KulturKontakt Austria. Building on this experience, 2012 saw creACTIV started as a pilot project in one of the four regions of Lower Austria with the aim of gradually expanding the offerings. Due to the positive feedback from workshop hosts, teachers, and participating apprentices, the project is now active in all regions of Lower Austria. Since 2012, more than 2,000 apprentices have participated in the programme.