«Citizenship Academy» is a Youth Democracy project which has been developed in the context of the European Year of Citizens 2013 and in the perspective of the May 2014 European Parliament elections. Everything Possible CIC (England) worked in cooperation with Bryson Charitable group (Northern Ireland), MARDI and Edenvella Youth (Ireland) in order to raise European awareness among 40 young people with fewer opportunities, aged between 16 and 20 years old (particularly the ones who didn’t benefit from a political education). The aim of the project was to introduce them to politics in general and more particularly European politics and cititizenship, explain them the functioning of the EU institutions and to encourage them to be more pro-active and involved in society as European citizens through the achievement of workshops, visits, actions of information and communication with a European dimension.
Everything Possible CIC and partners in Northern Ireland and in Ireland developed similar workshops. For example, at Everything is Possible, we started our local activities in partnership with the Brathay Trust center in Bradford. We worked with a group of 10 young people, all from disadvantaged background, during several sessions around the themes of European politics, citizenship, democracy and social advocacy. As an introduction, we started with a debate workshop to understand the advantages and drawbacks of being part of the EU, during which the young people were really enthoutiastic about sharing their point of view and knowledge. This workshop enabled us to set up basic information about the role of the main european institutions (Commission, Parliament and Council of Europe) and make young people understand that they deal with european laws and norms on a daily basis, without knowing it. The second session focussed on the concept of social advocacy and how to be more involved and pro-active in society, particularly in a local environment. Participants were divided in groups to reflect about the issues that were affecting their local community and what solutions they could think about in order to tackle those issues. The next sessions were dedicated to the development of some campaigns they could organise in their local community to participate pro-actively in solving problems. The aim of this activity was to simulate a political campaign in order to make them understand that they are able to take responsible actions. Afterwards, the teams presented their campaigns. They had to select 4 group leaders, who would be able to go to London during the seminar in July and represent them during the visit at the Europe house. This enabled them to take part into a democratic process, and to understand by a practical action what “democracy� means and how it can be applied in society. All the group of young people got then involved in the preparation to the seminar and to the stay in London.
The project fosters young people’s sense of European citizenship and helps them to understand their role as part of the present and future of Europe and the high stakes of their participation through voting and the importance of their active political involvement to improve and construct a better society. The project increased young people’s positive awareness of other cultures: Throughout workshops, activities and the final evaluation, we explored Europeans rights and duties, discussed about freedom of travel for people from different countries, the migratory changes it can engender and the current position of the UK government regarding those changes. The project develops a sense of tolerance and understanding of diversity: Participants learnt about each other and met young people from different countries and cultures experimenting similar situations and sometimes difficulties but in a different country and environment. The youth seminar gathering the young participants from Ireland and Northern Ireland gave a concrete dimension to the intercultural learning of the candidates, particularly for the young people from Ireland and Norther Ireland, as some of them had never had the opportunity to travel out of their local city and were used to living in the countryside or in small towns as opposed to a leading global city, a majord world cultural capital and symbol of cultural diversity such as London.
This project has been funded with support from the British Council and the European Commission. This leaflet and its content reflect the views only of the author and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein