"European Citizenship: learn and act"
Project summary
"European Citizenship: learn and act" project is intercultural educational experience for youth workers from EU and EU neighboring countries, particularly from Baltic (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). Project is organised by Mittetulundusühing MITRA (Estonia). 30 participants from six organisations from 3 Baltic and 3 Caucasus countries will be involved in this project with the aim to go deeper in European Citizenship education and explore audiovisual tools for activism. Preparatory meeting, activity 1 (A1) will be for seven youth workers between July 25-28, 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia and activity 2 (A2) for all 30 youth workers will be between September 1-8, 2014 in Nelijärve, Estonia. The working language will be English.
This project is built in the partnership with all promoters and based on ideas and needs of youth workers in trainings and capacity building discussed before, during and after Youth in Action "European Citizenship Education: Meanings, Understandings and Actions" training course organised by MITRA non-governmental organisation in August, 2013 in Narva-Jõesuu, Estonia.
The main objectives are that by the end of the "European Citizenship: learn and act" project participants - youth workers - explore and experience the potential of European Citizenship and integrate the learning outcomes into their daily work; understand connections between national-European-global citizenship; become active citizens; have the skills and practical experience in order to use European values with the aim to promote them and effectively act as multipliers of newly acquired competences; to have re-thinking skills for building learning society and better tomorrow; create basic network for learning and sharing ideas and creating Erasmus+ projects.
This project will support the professional development of participants by strengthening quality of their organisational capacities by extending their critical understanding of European Citizenship topic with the focus on connections between national-European-global citizenship. The youth workers will acquire an ability to run workshops on this theme. This will boost an exchange and reflection on the subject in the respective NGOs and on a larger scale. Participants will become more active in a public sphere. Being aware about values of European Citizenship youth workers are envisaged to take actions on local, national and global levels, in order to improve conditions for civic and democratic participation by promoting opportunities for societal engagement. MITRA team aspiration is to increase participation in public life and integration into society of young people and youth workers with fewer opportunities by promoting the non-formal education possibilities and building the capacity of youth organisations working with youth from rural areas and low income communities.
The main activities of the project will be team building, learning and sharing of best practices in European Citizenship and connections between national-European-global citizenship. Video for activism will be one of the core activities of this training course. An important activity will be the visit of Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) by the youth workers, where they will have an opportunity to meet politicians, ask questions and discuss the outcomes, consequences and possible influence on youth policies of 2014 EU elections. There will be working sessions on creating new youth projects for Erasmus+ Programme, dissemination project results with the focus on promotion of European Citizenship and European values in youth organisations.
The working methods of the project will apply to the non-formal education in Europe and on few innovative methods from participants involved in this project. Evaluation process will be based on the link between European Education knowledge, skills and attitudes and young people's future actions in their organisations, communities and countries.
The purposes of this project is to provide practical experience for youth workers ensuring the use of the European values with the aim to promote them in daily life, youth work and in media by using the acquired skills in video activism. As the impact and finally the potential longer term benefits are that participants will be able to effectively raise awareness in wider audience about Europe, EU and EU neighboring countries, particularly in Baltic and Caucasus regions. By doing so, they will gain an aptitude to cooperate with their peers and articulate the interests of the organisations at local and international levels. Participants will improve their professionalism in youth work by by being specifically trained to carry out the high quality activities they are involved with. It will inspire the creation of basic network for learning and sharing ideas and creating Erasmus+ youth projects with partners from EU and EU neighboring countries.
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This project is co-financed by the European Commission. This webpage section has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The content is the sole responsibility of project partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.
