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EUROACT - Training Youth Workers for Democratic Engagement

2026-1-AT01-KA153-YOU-0003990352026Mobility of youth workersongoing
Countries: AT|RO|UA|IT|BE|PL · Grant: €58,660
Awareness about the European UnionEuropean identity and valuesDemocracy and inclusive democratic participation

Objectives

EUROACT is a Training Course project conducted with the goals of conducting targeted, high-impact interventions into the professional practice of European youth work. The project is designed to address a clearly diagnosed, two-fold issue: a widespread practical deficit where youth workers understand EU values in theory but lack the tools to translate them into engaging non-formal education, and a methodological gap in facilitating democratic dialogue amid rising polarization and misinformation. From the perspective of youth work practice, our goal is to move beyond awareness-raising and equip front-line professionals with the necessary competences required to actively develop a resilient, participatory, and inclusive democratic culture among the young people they work with on a daily basis. To achieve this, EUROACT is structured around two core, practice-oriented objectives: Under the EURO Pillar, its goal is to transform EU literacy from a theoretical concept into an applied professional competence. In concrete practice, this means moving youth workers from simply knowing about EU institutions to being able to contextualize and operationalize the European project within their local work. We will empower them to dismantle complex topics such as the EU's ordinary legislative procedure, the competency distribution between EU and national levels, or the concrete mechanisms of the EU Youth Strategy and rebuild them as accessible, youth-friendly educational modules. For example, participants will not just learn about the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) as a concept; they will collaboratively draft mock ECI proposals based on real issues identified in their communities, thereby gaining experience in working with this tool through hands-on application, as an exercise of direct democracy. This pillar directly counteracts the "knowledge-to-application disconnect" by providing the practical learning frameworks to make EU governance, funding streams like Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, and political opportunities tangible and relevant in their daily programming, whether in a scout group, a youth center, or members of a municipal council. Under the ACT Pillar, we aim to equip youth workers with an advanced facilitation toolkit for navigating conflict, encourage critical thinking, and guaranteeing inclusion. This objective responds to the urgent need for professional strategies to facilitate constructive discourse in increasingly divided societies. In practice, we will directly train 36 youth workers in structured democratic facilitation techniques, such as moderating Oxford-style debates on contentious topics and employing Socratic questioning to deepen critical analysis. They will gain practical skills in digital and media literacy education, learning to design workshops that help young people deconstruct misinformation, recognize logical fallacies, and assess bias. Crucially, inclusion is not a separate module but a cross-cutting skill: participants will learn and practice concrete methodologies for designing activities that are accessible to NEETs, youth from rural areas, ethnic minorities, and those affected by conflict or displacement. This pillar ensures youth workers can create psychologically safe spaces where difficult conversations become opportunities for learning and empathy, rather than division, thereby strengthening the social fabric of their communities. Finally, EUROACT seeks to achieve a fundamental shift in professional capability. We envision our 36 participants returning to their organizations as empowered multipliers and confident practitioners. They will be capable of designing and leading complex non-formal education interventions that do not shy away from complexity but engage with it constructively. This professional upgrade is meant to enable them towards more effectively combatting youth disengagement and apathy towards the democratic process by demonstrating the tangible relevance of democratic participation, to counteract Eurosceptic narratives with fact-based, experiential learning, and to lower barriers to participation for the most marginalized young people. By doing so, EUROACT aims to strengthen the very infrastructure of youth work, turning practitioners into more informed, engaged, and resilient multipliers of European democracy, starting from the grassroots level of their daily practice.

Project partners (6)