The current pandemic has highlighted an increased need for active citizenship and regional as well as global cooperation. At the same time, it provides us with an opportunity to reassess our old practices and take a set of bolder measures in order to prevent future crises which can be far more devastating than the current one, such as climate change and exacerbating inequalities. The partners of this project are thus convinced that an increasing number of people need to be directly involved in the conscious shaping of our common future. This process will need well-informed citizens showing a capacity to imagine a better future and able to look at different alternatives with both open and critical minds. In particular young people play an important role in this regard as they are receptive to new approaches and can act as multipliers for innovative participation instruments. This partnership thus aims to create an “EU Democracy Rally” providing young people with the opportunity to train their active citizenship skills while jointly building political and social campaigns. The online participation platform democracyrally.eu will feature an online version of the Rally and enable participants to team up on the European level while cooperating with youth workers as well as decision- and change-makers. A third intellectual output will be a toolkit allowing young people to explore the democracy of the future, including mind games, simulations, studies and joint exploration activities. This strategic partnership includes ten partners from ten EU countries who each possess specific expertise on matters related to active citizenship, including decision-making processes, EU participation instruments, human rights education, open data and open cities, investigative journalism, game-based learning, team management and intercultural skills, fact checking, mental and digital well-being, law reform and transparency, and the development of creativity. Partners will meet five times in the course of the project during transnational partner meetings in order to jointly develop their future participation instruments. One Learning, Teaching and Training Activity will give partners the opportunity to test their developed participation instruments with a European group of young participants. Partners will also organise an online conference on future democracy with the aim of exploring the most advanced and most promising democratic processes existing all over the planet. Finally, partners will organise two multiplier events in Luxembourg and Brussels. Partners will use a hybrid project management methodology combining the Waterfall and Agile methodologies. Initially, this methodology focuses on gathering and analysing requirements while defining clear responsibilities. In the course of the project, the agile management component grants partners the necessary freedom to experiment with new approaches and gradually expand the scope of project activities. Apart from the three main outputs, partners will also set up local, regional, national and European implementation teams for their created instruments: the EU Democracy Rally and exploration activities on future democracy. An online exchange database created on their common website will enable every institution or youth worker implementing the tool to register and benefit from the support of the partnership during the implementation of the Democracy Rally and related youth campaigns developed by participants. The developed tools will thus support youth workers all over the EU in boosting active citizenship skills of young people. Young people will further be empowered by teaming up on a European level in order to give greater leverage to their political and social campaigns developed in the course of the EU Democracy Rally. Young people at risk of exclusion will feel empowered by the experience of cooperating with their peers while jointly creating initiatives which have an impact on social and political challenges they feel strongly about. By connecting young people from all over Europe with decision- and change-makers, the platform will create a feedback loop between these stakeholders and foster their constant dialogue in view of jointly identifying solutions to local, regional and European challenges. The online platform will further serve as a reference tool for the exploration of democratic innovations, in particular with regard to the political development of the European Union. Finally, the exploration activities on future democracy will help to sensitise young people, youth workers, policy- and change-makers to the potentialities of future democratic participation mechanisms. Partners are convinced that democratic innovation will play a fundamental role in the process of tackling global challenges and finding more sustainable lifestyles. As a space protecting fundamental human values and freedoms, the European Union can play a decisive role in this process.
The partners of this strategic partnership aimed to jointly develop an activity platform for young people which can be offered by youth workers, teachers and other professionals, as well as young people, allowing participants to become active citizens who are able to better understand and more effectively shape the world in which they live. The current pandemic has indeed highlighted a set of democratic challenges which need to be addressed, including the preservation of fundamental rights and the fostering of transnational cooperation. Partners thus aimed to develop an instrument which will allow young people to boost their democratic skills, enabling them to strengthen our democracies, while participating in meaningful ways. At the same time, participants have been and will be able to acquire fundamental skills to cope with a whole array of different challenges in life, including self-confidence, public speaking, presentation skills, imagination, organisational skills, team leadership, monitoring of policies and public spending, and more. Our second main priority was social inclusion. The instrument developed by the partnership indeed enables youth workers to engage young people from different socio-economic backgrounds and with manifold interests. The skills needed to engage with the instrument are diverse, so that every participant is able to draw upon their own strengths, irrespective of their level of education or experience. The developed activities further enable diverse participants to create bonds between each other, as they need to jointly take up concrete challenges. It is only the combination of the skills of participants from various backgrounds and fields allows future teams to successfully face the challenges of the future EU Democracy Rally. Finally, our third priority concerned innovative digital tools which are designed to strengthen democratic participation. While the future of democracy continues to lie in deliberation, digital tools can help to foster increased transparency and organise participation processes more effectively. The development of these tools is advancing at a fast pace and very few people have had the chance to familiarise themselves with their potential. It is therefore important to support youth workers and other professionals working with young people in this learning process, while fostering access and use by underrepresented groups. It is generally assumed that young people have a certain set of digital skills, most notably when it comes to the use of social media functionalities. At the same time, youth workers, teachers and other professionals currently observe that many young people have difficulties with a whole set of digital skills which are necessary to engage in common tasks with their peers online, co-manage projects, keep a discipline, or which require a basic knowledge of programming and the functioning of digital tools. Last but not least, especially during times of crisis such as the one caused by the pandemic, democracy must go on and continue to become stronger. Digital tools can help keep parliaments and governments thriving in a way that enhances rather than threatens democracy. In fact, the lockdown or state of social distancing is a key opportunity to experiment with digital methods to support democratic institutions and citizen engagement into the future. The EU Democracy Rally thus aims to engage, connect and empower young people. It strengthens cross-sectorial cooperation by allowing professionals from various fields to contribute their expertise and allows for greater synergies across different areas of actions that matter for young people. The EU Democracy Rally includes and further develops alternative and innovative forms of participation in order to strengthen the active citizenship of young people, proactively including youth at risk of social exclusion or at a disadvantage. One of the partners specifically focuses on gender equality while another partner helps to take into account the psychological challenges of modern-day life. The project thus created a platform which enhances the participation of all young people in democratic and civic life in Europe. It enables young people to connect with elected policy makers, public administrations, interest groups, civil society organisations and change-makers active in political or social processes affecting their lives. It further enhances critical thinking and media literacy among young people to strengthen democracy and counter manipulation, propaganda and disinformation. Each Rally will result in concrete campaigns designed by young people and thereby broaden and deepen their political, civic and social participation at local, regional, national and European level. This instrument created by the partnership called “EU Democracy Rally“ can be compared to a laboratory in which young people are able to experiment with different tools and methodologies. It is called a “Rally” because it consists of different activities allowing young people to develop their democracy skills. These activities are integrated into a course with elements of game-based learning and varying time lapses to fulfil the actions. They address the following skills among others: - Public speaking - Negotiations - Recognition of media manipulation and fake news - Video journalism - Social Media Campaigning - Creative thinking - Debating - Team building and leadership - Development of political or social campaigns, including audio-visual campaign identities - Tools for e-participation - Digital and audio-visual communication skills - Project management - Open data - Monitoring of government policies and budget expenditures - Use of existing instruments for political participation at EU level - Communication with decision-makers. The final tool comprises three levels: - The first level consists of the different activities and exercises which young people are able to experience in order to develop their democracy skills. - The second level will consists in the guidelines and mechanisms allowing young people to combine the skills acquired within the individual activities in order to design their own political or social campaigns. - The third level of the instrument consists in a toolkit and support structure helping young people during the implementation of their campaign in the aftermath of a Rally. The first intellectual output consists in the instructions and materials for youth workers to implement the Rally by themselves, including the different activities, the implementation roadmap of the Rally as a whole, and the follow-up for the implementation of the campaigns designed by future participants. This tool is usable in both formal and non-formal settings, while the non-formal setting will be ideal in order to guarantee greater flexibility. The second intellectual output consists in an online version of the Rally. All activities which can also be implemented online will be included in the online version, as well as additional tools and instruments which rely on the digital sphere. A further result of the partnership is the network of partners which will continue to operate after the strategic partnership in order to implement the developed tools in cooperation with different institutions such as Liaison Offices of the European Parliament, Youth Conferences on the EU level, Houses of the European Union in various Members States, Youth Offices, Ministries and others. Each partner also has built local teams in cooperation with 3 to 5 new organisations in order to offer the Rally on a local level after the Erasmus+ partnership. Partners have started building a network database of decision- and change-makers which future participants can involve in the implementation of political and social campaigns. The instrument thus enables the creation of new project ideas and campaigns by young people from all over the European Union while fostering new opportunities for cooperation with various institutions interested in the instruments developed by the partnership. The online exchange database created on the website enables every institution or youth worker implementing the tool to register and benefit from the support of the partnership networks during the implementation of campaigns developed by their participants. Finally, the instrument allows partners to build a community of participants that can be associated in the communication on campaigns designed by future participants as well as partner organisations themselves.
In the context of the covid-19 pandemic, young people across Europe have become increasingly aware of the importance of active citizenship in view of encouraging more sustainable lifestyles and preventing future crises such as climate change and exacerbating inequalities. In this process, the partners in this project realised it was of utmost importance for citizens to be involved in the shaping of future policies. When our societies face unforeseen situations or new challenges, policy measures need to be tested in collaboration with well-informed citizens showing a capacity to imagine a better future and being able to look at different alternatives with both open and critical minds. The changes which need to be implemented rely on the understanding and also the help of every single citizen. Hence, studies show that in particular young people play an important role in this regard as they are receptive to new approaches and at the same time they can act as multipliers for innovative participation instruments, for example by involving their parents and communities. Partners thus aimed to design an instrument allowing themselves as well as youth workers, trainers, teachers, and others all over Europe to use citizenship education in order to foster active and informed citizenship, social inclusion and bonds between people living in different socioeconomic realities. The instruments of the partnership are designed to enable young people to acquire new skills which can also be considered key skills of the 21st century, including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, information and media literacy, technology literacy. The development of these skills is helpful to young people from all social backgrounds, in all areas of life, including young people with fever opportunities and the so-called “NEETS”, as it supports young people’s general sense of agency. A needs analysis had been carried out in the three years preceding the strategic partnership, involving 120 young people aged 16 to 20 and 10 youth workers. In the course of three one-day activities, young people were able to experiment with a series of democracy skills, including public speaking, video journalism, fake news analysis, negotiations and social media campaigns, while at the same time debating which skills they see as most important when it comes to future democratic participation. These events thus allowed the leading partner to carry out a needs analysis involving both young people and youth workers. Participants volunteered to take part in these workshops and were selected on the basis of previously shown commitment in the field of European citizenship. Partners have made their instruments accessible to target groups who are new to transnational activities while using the expertise of organisations which have expertise in working in varying social and historic contexts. Partners also promoted cross-sectoral cooperation in the field of democratic innovations while conducting research on innovative democratic practices and creating a safe space to experiment with these practices. The new participation tools and channels created will now help youth workers address the disillusionment of young people with traditional politics. They will further allow young people to familiarise themselves with existing and upcoming instruments of political participation, in particular on the EU level. Participants have and will become more aware of the participation opportunities in the existing political processes, in particular related to the EU level, but also in connection with the local, regional and national levels. Our project thus also helped the partner organisations to further develop their instruments and make them more impactful, while creating new ones. Our main target groups of the partnership during the Erasmus+ project therefore included youth workers, but also experts in active citizenship, media professionals, human rights experts, journalists, pedagogues, experts in mental well-being, intercultural dialogue experts, experts in digital democracy, influencers and futurologists. The target group of the instruments and results of the partnership included mainly youth workers as well as young people aged 16 to 30 from a variety of social, economic and cultural spheres. A further target group consisted in decision- and change-makers who will be associated in the follow-up of the created instruments, supporting young people in the implementation of their political and social campaigns while being able to build on their feedback and expertise concerning their own policies, as well as on their support with the communication and implementation of policy measures. Through the direct interaction with decision-makers, the platform will contribute to the recognition of youth work and informal and non-formal learning at all political levels, in particular on the European level. The transnational nature of the partnership allows partners to ensure the following elements: - the cooperation with partners who have special expertise in domains of key importance for the outcomes of the project; - ensuring a European impact and wide use of the instruments developed, in order to strengthen democracy on the European level; - focus on political participation on the European level; - ensuring the impact of developed initiatives resulting from the tool on EU policy making; - addressing the most fundamental challenges of modern times, which require European and global cooperation; - support to European policy makers through the consideration of varying social and political realities in different Member States.