European young people are facing with difficulties in the analysis of the information from media and the Internet, with manipulation and one-sided, biased coverage of events by the media. It is very important to develop media literacy and critical thinking of young people. This, in turn, will contribute to the development of citizenship and active youth position. These skills will enable young people to create own media projects, to express and defend their position in the social networks, blogs, and foster youth participation. The European level of the project will enable participating organizations to share positive experience and information, to get a broader perspective on the project themes. The aim of the project is to foster youth participation and develop youth citizenship, the formation of its active life and civil position through the exchange of positive experience and information in the field of media literacy and Internet competence, exhannge of experience and the ability to defend their point of view and resist propaganda and manipulation. The project envisages the involvement of the two target groups: Participants of the training seminar will be youth workers, activists, volunteers with experience of work with mass media, able to share their experience and information, having support of their organizations and ready to work actively during the course of whole project. Age of participants - 18-27 years In the second and third stages (regional seminars and practical activities) young people - members of the partners organizations will be involved. Age of participants - 18-23 years. The project will use different methods of non-formal education: exchange of expereince and information interactive exercises and role-playing games, practical workshops aimed at the acquisition of skills, peer education and multiplying, organization and holding own activities and others. Participants will acquire experience and useful skills on media literacy, develop their organizational skills, multipliers skills, gain experience and cooperation with the mass media, will be able to express themselves during the implementation of practical activities. The project will promote the development of organizations, involvement of young people and the development of critical thinking and citizenship. The results of the project will be prepared youth workers; carried out practical activities; developed materials on the topics of the project, the project site.
In the last years, in the context of Europe and the global political background of Europe, people living in Europe, including Russian-speaking young people from the Baltics, Poland, Finland and Germany, are faced with information analyzes of the difficulties that come from the media or from the Internet, and problems with the formation and perception of their personal opinion. Through the formation of a person and a potential citizen, young people come across and suffer under the influence of mass media manipulation, which directly affects the development of the society's opinion on important issues of life for young people. Against the backdrop of topical issues and comprehensive propaganda, extremism, discrimination, intolerance, xenophobia, radicalism, aggressions are spreading among young people. Media has an important role here, which unilaterally reveals political events and processes in today's world, and this one-sidedness is often associated with a semblance of rebroadcasting and the position of special political or ideological forces. Different methods of manipulation are used in media and in the Internet: visual, linguistic, stereotyping and demagogy methods. These manipulations are particularly dangerous in explaining the more acute issues that have emerged in recent years, such as defining common European values, objectively identifying military conflicts, clarifying political and social events, and the problem of migration. The idea of the project comes from the fact that today's young people are not so well-educated in this field and they need additional knowledge and additional experience. It affects both young people and youth workers. We considered it important to organize this project in an international level, because the problem that the project concerned has a widespread dissemination: the problems are not local but international. Russian-speaking young people are living throughout Europe today, and in many ways, their opinions and attitudes towards events will depend on which languages they receive and the channels they receive. In addition to the international (European) level, the project now allows the participating organizations to share positive experiences and information in order to get new projects in the broader perspective of the project. The aim of the project was to foster youth participation and develop youth citizenship, the formation of its active life and civil position through the exchange of positive experience and information in the field of media literacy and Internet competence, exhannge of experience and the ability to defend their point of view and resist propaganda and manipulation. The project was attended by 6 partners from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Finland and Poland. During 13 months, 2 workshops, 3 international events were held, which included training, exchange of experience and guidance by experts, local events, creation of a web-based manual. Altogether 900 young people from 6 countries were involved in the project.