Background
Democracy at risk
This project brought together 40 young people and 8 youth workers from Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Portugal and Romania in 2019 around the concept of democracy and the role of active civil participation in maintaining freedom and well-being of society.
Roads of Democracy came from 3 observations:
1) Young people in Europe take democracy for granted, the "natural" form of government, since dictatorship or any form of oppressive regime is part of a distant history or exists only outside its immediate reality.
2) Intergenerational dialogue is becoming increasingly rare. On one hand, young people feel that they live in a world apart, lived at a dizzying pace. On the other hand, adults and seniors feel undervalued and the product of a different world, with incomparable values and experiences.
3) Our young people had a weak awareness of their European citizenship, as a result of their peripheral location and the reduced or null contact with other young Europeans.
Roads of Democracy combined these issues: it sensitized young people to their role in democracy through direct contact with both other young Europeans and with people from the community who experienced the totalitarian regime in their country (in our case, the New State).
Methodology
Direct Contact & Sharing
1) Each group of young people, at the local level, conducted interviews with witnesses of totalitarian regimes in Europe, who shared what it was like to live, work or date with oppression, for example. They then edited those interviews and added English subtitles so they could share them with other young people in Europe;
2) Each group of young people, at the local level, prepared a short presentation of their country's totalitarian historical period to contextualize the interviews they would share;
3) Youth Exchange in Bulgaria:
- Activities of getting to know each other;
- Intercultural Dialogue;
- Sharing of created content;
- Intercultural nights;
- Group activities on the values of democracy;
- Reflection on the current state of democracy and youth participation;
- Discovery of local culture.
4) Local Event prepared by young people themselves to share the results of «Roads of Democracy».
Results
Learning & Content
The results of the project can be divided into tangible (content) and intangible (learning and impact on all elements involved).
Intangible Results:
Greater predisposition to actively participate in democratic processes;
Greater openness to intercultural difference;
Development of communicative competence in English;
Strengthened European citizenship;
Valuing freedom and the democratic regime, despite its imperfections;
…
Tangible Results:
Videos of interviews with people who lived during the dictatorship in 4 European countries;
Prezi presentation about the Estado Novo in Portugal (EN / PT);
Video about the Youth Exchange;
Tangible results are available for free in the project's youtube channel and in this document, in which all project results are summarized.