The Story Regions project wants to develop and share storytelling approaches for community development, social cohesion and learning. In this project we want to explore the potential of oral storytelling as a tool for learning for different target groups in adult education and in social and cultural contexts. Not only by using stories as carriers of (cultural, historical) knowledge and to practice listening and speaking skills, but also because it offers a strong tool for empowerment and social inclusion. We think that storytelling has a great potential to attract and motivate people to learn, to connect with others, with other generations, to express oneself and to integrate in society. We also think that storytelling offers a common approach to personal development and learning that has the potential to unite the different sectors in a community. From the combined expertise of the partners the consortium will develop an approach and strategy for learning and community development based on inter-organisational storytelling projects and for professional development of all actors involved. The main aim of the project is to develop new projects and materials involving storytelling and include them as innovative approach and new content in different in-service training initiatives for professional development using storytelling in order to offer: - a common approach to learning that transcends the formal and non-formal education sectors and the socio-cultural sectors. Storytelling is extremely well fit to lower the threshold for participation and learning and to create innovative and attractive pathways to the development of key competences: literacy, foreign languages, cultural awareness, civic and entrepreneurial competences. - tools for inclusion as storytelling is a way of expressing individual and cultural identity, inviting the listener to identify with “the other”. Anyone who gets to tell his/her story and is heard finds a sense of being part of the group, the community. - tools for community development, community story-art projects, common tools and approaches for local and regional organisations to cooperate on common goals and the creation of an inter-sectorial and inter-organisational network. The primary target group for the material and methodology developed in Story Regions are cultural administrators (community/city/regional level) community workers, socio-cultural actors, non-formal adult educators working with disadvantaged groups, second chance education ... For cultural administrators and socio-cultural actors we expect higher awareness of the potential of storytelling projects in their work, improved professional capacity for applying storytelling techniques and projects, being prepared for inter-sectorial networking and building community art projects based on storytelling approaches. For storytelling curators we expect better insight in their professional competence profile, improved professional capacity for promoting and supporting regional storytelling projects, better contacts and networks at European level. For the city/region we expect more frequent and better inter-sectorial and organizational cooperation, better structure in community building policy, more storytelling projects involving different sectors and community groups. For the citizens / population / learners we expect better integration of disadvantaged groups, more participation of people in socio-cultural activities, higher level of linguistic and transversal competences, better links with culture and heritage, improved learning achievements, increased (European) citizenship awareness.