The objectives of this project were: • to provide youth workers and young people with competences in critical thinking and media literacy; • to offer them training materials in order to develop skills for media content analysis; • to explore the phenomenon of disinformation, both in deconstructing fake news and comprehending what is authentic; • to advance non-formal education and cooperation in the field of youth work with EU Programme countries. Young people spend a lot of time in social media and because of that it is very important to develop their critical thinking skills to be able analyse and buid trust on news and sources they receive via social media. Many young people live in social media bubble and have strong impact from groups and pages they use. It often happened that young minds are manipulated by media and social media. Young people need training and efficient materials to understand how media is working and who are influencers. Non-formal education is one of important way to educate young people with help of youth workers who have to be educated themselves. This project and its results help young people and youth workers to face social media challengers by offering theoretical and practical materials.
This project aimed to create theoretical and practical materials focused on digital literacy and critical analysis of media and social media content and by this support horizontal priority of the Erasmus+ Programme. Work on materials, exchange of good practices and training helped to develop digital readeness, resilience and capacity of the project partners organisations. The acquisition of new competences by youth workers supported increasing of quality of youth work. Partners from Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, France and Italy created a comprehensive E-Handbook which supports the main target group - youth workers who use this project result in the daily work with young people - final beneficiaries. E-Handbook is useful also for wider audience: educators who use non-formal education methods, NGOs workers and other stakeholders who are interested to learn about digital literacy, critical thinking and media literacy as they were main trends in postpandemic time. Partners worked on the topics of fake news/disinformation/misinformation analysis and how they can be used in youth work. Partners had focus on social media because it plays a significant role in spreading disinformation and forging stereotypes and prejudices in societies.