Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Reference: 2020-3-LU01-KA205-078013

Partners:

• Access Info Europe 🇪🇸 Spain

• ALTERNATIVE EUROPEE 🇮🇹 Italy

• ECIT Foundation 🇧🇪 Belgium

• FUNDACJA EPANSTWO 🇵🇱 Poland

• FUNDACJA TECHSOUP 🇵🇱 Poland

• FUNKY CITIZENS 🇷🇴 Romania

• LUDWIG BOLTZMANN INSTITUT FUR MENSCHENRECHTE - FORSCHUNGSVEREIN 🇦🇹 Austria

• Peuple et Culture 🇫🇷 France

• polyspektiv Frank Burgdörfer und Heidi Ness GbR 🇩🇪 Germany

• Well-Being Lab 🇸🇪 Sweden

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.