The life of young people in Europe is very much dependent on the economical, social and political situation throughout the globe. Migration trends, increasing diversity in the societies, military conflicts and economic sanctions makes a significant impact of the EU citizens, as EU plays an important role in the global market as one of the biggest economies. Although a large number of young people in Europe support the EU contributions towards sustainable global development, only 1/5 of the youngsters have a strong belief that the global development and support to poorer can have a positive impact to the lives of the EU citizens. Furthermore, only a very small percentage of youngsters have a strong belief that they as individuals can play an important role in tackling global poverty. One of the reasons of such results might be the lack of understanding, how the world is connected, how the decisions made in EU affect the lives of people around the world, and how the problems and disasters that happen in other parts of the globe affect the lives of EU residents. Moreover, the youngsters lack of knowledge and skills for active civic engagement in meeting the global challenges. They lack of understanding that active civic participation or the change of individual habits and behaviors can make an impact to people and countries living in other parts of the world. The present project intends to meet the above mentioned needs and concerns by increasing opportunities for young people in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Spain to gain more knowledge, skills and change their behaviors necessary to meeting the global challenges and taking an active civic role to cope with them. The project aims to broaden civic participation of young people and enable them to contribute to meeting global challenges through local civic actions. This will be done by improving the quality of youth work and joining efforts of youth and educational bodies towards making young people promoters of global citizenship.The project will engage 380 participants: 240 young people, who will be provided with the opportunities to increase and apply their global citizenship competencies, 128 youth workers and youth leaders who will be give the possibility to improve their professional competence and embed global citizenship into their daily work, as well as 12 educators and youth policy maker, who will inform the process of development of a common framework for active global citizenship in partner countries. The project will develop a number of outputs aimed to create, pilot and share good global citizenship practices. The include publications, joint educational frameworks, learning/teaching resources, ICT-based learning tools, interactive resources summarizing good global citizenship practices in partner countries. The outputs will be piloted and embedded into youth work and non-formal education practices with the help of a number of international training and multiplier events. The project will provide an opportunity for young people to think of the issues they face everyday from the global perspective. It will allow the project participants to find their own role in the global society, as well as stimulate their behavioral change in order to contribute to sustainable development both locally and globally. The project will also allow its participants to identify the effects of the global issues to their own lives and make them become more active and responsible by changing their own views, attitudes, daily habits. It is also expected that the respect for diversity, self-esteem and personal responsibility of the project participants towards the issues happening around will be increased.The current project addresses the issues which are common for the whole European community. First of all, by providing innovative non-formal education methodologies and tools it will contribute to promoting the common European values, such as solidarity with poor countries in the world, as well as solidarity among people with the EU, dialogue between cultures and religions, respect for human rights, and others. Secondly, through increasing global citizenship education opportunities it will foster active citizenship among young people in Europe, thus contributing to the increase of active participation of the youngsters in the decision making processes throughout the EU.
The life of young people in Europe is very much dependent on the economical, social and political situation throughout the globe. Migration trends, increasing diversity in the societies, military conflicts and economic sanctions makes a significant impact of the EU citizens, as EU plays an important role in the global market as one of the biggest economies. Although a large number of young people in Europe support the EU contributions towards sustainable global development, only 1/5 of the youngsters have a strong belief that the global development and support to poorer can have a positive impact to the lives of the EU citizens. Furthermore, only a very small percentage of youngsters have a strong belief that they as individuals can play an important role in tackling global poverty. One of the reasons of such results might be the lack of understanding, how the world is connected, how the decisions made in EU affect the lives of people around the world, and how the problems and disasters that happen in other parts of the globe affect the lives of EU residents. Moreover, the youngsters lack of knowledge and skills for active civic engagement in meeting the global challenges. They lack of understanding that active civic participation or the change of individual habits and behaviors can make an impact to people and countries living in other parts of the world. The present project had an intent to meet the above mentioned needs and concerns by increasing opportunities for young people in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Spain to gain more knowledge, skills and change their behaviors necessary to meeting the global challenges and taking an active civic role to cope with them. The general aim of the project - to broaden civic participation of young people and enable them to contribute to meeting global challenges through local civic actions. This was be done by improving the quality of youth work and joining efforts of youth and educational bodies towards making young people promoters of global citizenship.The project will engaged 440 participants: 306 young people, who were provided with the opportunities to increase and apply their global citizenship competencies, 127 youth workers, youth leaders and educators who were given the possibility to improve their professional competence and embed global citizenship into their daily work, as well as 7 other stakeholders who informed the process of development of a common framework for active global citizenship in partner countries. The project developed a number of outputs aimed to create, pilot and share good global citizenship practices. They include: - The summary of research carried out in partner countries "The Picture of a Future Global Citizen"; - Framework for global citizenship education' - The guide "Six Steps to Global Citizenship. A Guide for Youth Workers, Youth Leaders and Educators"; - Mobile application "Six Steps to Global Citizenship. A Guide for Young People"; - Summary of good practices of global citizenship developed withion the project. The project provided an opportunity for young people to think of the issues they face everyday from the global perspective. It allowed the project participants to find their own role in the global society, as well as stimulate their behavioral change in order to contribute to sustainable development both locally and globally. The project also allowed its participants to identify the effects of the global issues to their own lives and make them become more active and responsible by changing their own views, attitudes, daily habits. The present project addressed the issues which are common for the whole European community. First, by providing innovative non-formal education methodologies and tools it contributed to promoting the common European values, such as solidarity with poor countries in the world, as well as solidarity among people with the EU, dialogue between cultures and religions, respect for human rights, and others. By providing new quality materials for global citizenship education, the project also contributed to Sustainable Development Goald, specifically, the one of the targets of the SDG 4 “Quality Education” - “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through […] global citizenship […]”. Last but not least, - The project also contributed to the EU Youth strategy 2010-2018, particularly to its area “Youth and the World” as it provided opportunities for young people to become aware of different global issues which is one of the target of the above Strategy.