The project "More participatory democracy, more active citizenship" is coordinated by the Camilo Castelo Branco School Group of Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, and has the partners Siauliu Juliaus Janonio gimnazija, from Siauliai, Lithuania, and IES URBI BHI, from Basauri, Spain. These are institutions with related profiles, certified with the eTwinning School Seal, with Erasmus + experience. They shared pedagogical presuppositions and strategic objectives common to their educational projects: democratic participation is one of the most powerful means of personal and social transformation, promoter of INCLUSION; the school is the first civic space of participation for the young person, the one where he first appropriates the mechanisms of democratic participation, can give them meaning and political usefulness; school structures need to actively listen to young proposals; of this first space of participation, the young person must go to other contexts, so that he is active in his parish, county, region, country, European Union and World; given the lack of democratic participation of young people in today's political life, the partners understand that the school context must provide dynamic, motivating, mobilizing, and engaging pedagogies; teachers need to know new resources and strategies, to observe how the school's own colleagues and partner schools work and become progressively involved in education for European and global citizenship. This project deeply believes in the catalytic effect of the political education activities developed in the two LTTAs in Brussels and Strasbourg: legislative simulations, seminars, interactive visits, role-play, action research, educating city, debates, personalized lectures, apps, video application manipulation, application and smartphone usage, etc. In the LTTA and respective countries, we will also focus on focus groups, questionnaire surveys, interviews, simulations, debates, among other methodologies. This alliance between traditional methodologies and innovative methodologies will last throughout the project. It is a conscious pedagogical intentionality: to enable participants in the various forms of participation, in view of the regular functioning of institutions, but also the new forms of participation of the digital age. We seek to unite non-institutional pedagogies and out-of-school education, so that the acquired competencies of participatory democracy in intervention at school have a dynamic effect for application in contexts outside of school, not only in the present, but in the future. Better school, more inclusive school, school with greater and better social utility, but also more democratic educational territories. In the medium and long term, this project, using various digital and traditional means of communication and dissemination, has immense potential to bring about change: the recommendations will be shared with school, local, national and international policy makers. We want all those who listen to us to understand that it is urgent to change the political formation of young people, to involve them in causes and to provide them with digital means of participation.
The project “More participatory democracy, more active citizenship” was coordinated by the Camilo Castelo Branco School Group from Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, and had as partners the schools Siauliu Juliaus Janonio gimnazija, from Siauliai, Lithuania, and IES URBI BHI, from Basauri, Spain. These are institutions with similar profiles, two of which are certified with the eTwinning School Seal, with different degrees of Erasmus+ experience and European and international education. Over the 3 years, it involved more than 500 secondary school students, aged between 15 and 18, directly, as active participants in local activities, including international mobility students. It started from shared pedagogical assumptions and strategic objectives common to the respective educational projects: democratic participation is one of the most powerful means of personal and social transformation, promoting INCLUSION; the school is the first civic space of participation for young people, the one where they first take ownership of the mechanisms of democratic participation, giving them meaning and political utility; school structures need to actively listen to young people's proposals; From this first space of participation, the young person must leave for other contexts, so that they can be active in their parish, county, region, country, European Union and the World; given the deficit in democratic participation of young people in current political life, the partners understand that the school context must provide dynamic, motivating, mobilizing and engaging pedagogies; Teachers need to learn about new resources and strategies, see how peers at their own school and in partner schools work and become progressively involved in education for European and global citizenship. Its objectives were to encourage the participation and democratization of daily school management, stimulating the protagonism of students, cooperating in a network with European partners, reinforcing in the participants a sense of European identity and enlightening them about the value of European civilization and the foundations on which it is based. European peoples currently consider it their duty to base their development, that is, to defend the principles of democracy, social justice and respect for Human Rights, to prepare participants to participate in the social and economic development of the Community, the Country and the European Union. The activities of this project were deeply influenced by the context of Covid 19, for 18 months. The replanning made it possible to deepen the collective construction of common history and memory, the involvement of families, political decision-makers and civil society in the project and their commitment to expected results and others that were enhanced, such as the defense of European values and Human Rights and the digital empowerment of participants. The political education activities carried out in Brussels and Strasbourg had a very strong catalytic effect: legislative simulations, seminars, interactive visits, role-play, action research, educating city, debates, personalized lectures, exploration of multimedia content in apps, manipulation of video applications, using apps and smartphones, etc. In the other LTTAs, we also use a wide range of innovative methodologies. This alliance between traditional methodologies and innovative methodologies lasted throughout the project. It is a conscious pedagogical intention: to train participants in the various forms of participation, in view of the regular functioning of the institutions, but also the new forms of participation of the digital age. We seek to unite non-institutional pedagogies and out-of-school education, so that the skills acquired from participatory democracy, in school intervention, have a dynamic effect for application in contexts outside of school, not only in the present, but in the future. A better school, a more inclusive school, a school with greater and better social utility, but also more democratic educational territories. This project, using various digital and traditional means of communication and dissemination, brought significant changes to the partner schools: strengthening democratic, European, multilingual, multicultural and digital education, strengthening the internationalization of schools, strengthening and qualifying internal and external partnerships, more international and democratic school environments. The activities of this project made it possible to empower the European Education Area, align school policies with the challenges of the European Commission and build with quality and emotion the "European Being", in the sense of belonging (Europe close to me, me in Europe), overcoming geographic and cultural barriers of schools that are assumed to be united in diversity, international teaching and learning communities.