Back to search

Youth Council for Active Citizenship

2019-2-RO01-KA105-0643092019Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: RO|EL|BG|PL|ES|SK|MK|IT · Grant: €26,488
Civic engagement / responsible citizenshipYouth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Objectives

Political participation and political engagement are considered to be necessary conditions for democracy to function effectively. However, young people are frequently singled out as a problematic group, displaying low levels of electoral turnout, a lack of trust in democratic institutions and signs of scepticism and cynicism regarding politicians and political parties. The phenomenon of electoral abstention, which appears to be increasing in many EU countries, awakens justified concern. According to the Eurobarometer Survey 89.2 of the European Parliament from 2018, 44% of the respondents think that Things are going in a wrong direction in the European Union while only 32% think that things are going in a good direction. Still, the same barometer shows us that 60% of the Europeans think that their country membership in the EU is a good thing while only 12% think is a bad thing. The interesting thing is that 42% of the EU citizens are totally not satisfied with the way democracy works in the EU. This can also show us that there is a lack of information or knowledge about how do the EU institutions work and also their prerogatives. The same Eurobarometer shows that 33% of the EU citizens are total, not likely to vote in the 2019 European Elections and that 48% are totally not interested in them. The partners involved in the project used the above mentioned information and discussed it among the community in which they develop their activity, organizing debates and online seminars with youth. At first, in all the countries involved, more than 50% of youth from each community mentioned they will not go to vote in May 2019, citing that they don't know enough information about how EU works and the role of European Parliament. Also, among the identified needs discovered after the dialogue with the youth from their communities, the most highlighted ones were: * the youth are having high difficulties when informing themselves and verifying the information sources when they want to inform about how the decisions are taken * low level of infromation regarding European institutions * the youth are having a low level of communication and arguing competences * low level of involvement in the decision making process in their community * low level of self-esteem based on the lack of representativeness The purpose of the project was to increase the competence level in communication and argumenting in the topic of the decision making process in public life among the 32 participants. The objectives of the project were: Increasing the level of competences on verifying and validating true information soruces for the 32 young participants in the mobility period of the project Inceasing the level of information regarding the European institutions and how they are working among the 32 participants on the 10 day period of the mobility The project will be implemented after the European Parliament elections in May 2019 and it will represent a way of checking the willingless of the participants to be involved in the decision making process.The project was coordinated by Adrian Calugaru, who was in 2018 the president of the Youth Working Party responsible for the preparation of the Romanian Presidency at the Council of EU in the field of youth and sport and has used his experience gathered in a practical mode to introduce the participants in the atmosphere of a real European institution.

Project partners (8)