“Navigating Narratives: A media literacy journey for youth workers”

In today's information-driven world, young people are exposed to a constant stream of media content, from news reports to social media updates. Their ability to critically analyse and evaluate this information is crucial for informed decision-making and active civic engagement. Media literacy empowers youth to discern between reliable sources and misinformation, fostering a more informed decision making and participation in democratic processes. In this era of digital communication and social media influence, equipping young individuals with media literacy skills becomes an essential pillar in safeguarding the integrity of democratic processes and promoting meaningful participation.

Training course “Navigating Narratives: A media literacy journey for youth workers” is based on non-formal education and learning-by-doing methods. Activity will provide participants with an opportunity to create their own learning expectations and outcomes, but also to discover themselves and their own personal limits. Training is focused on raising competences of the youth workers/teachers/educators in topics of media literacy, how to approach this topic and how to further organise activities on this topic in order to contribute to improving level of youth participation on local level.

What will the TC look like?

Each working day has 2 topics – one to be addressed through the workshops in the morning (from the breakfast until the lunch), and second addressed in the afternoon (after the lunch break).  

A coffee break for a duration of 30 minutes will be organised 2 times a day – once during the morning topic sessions, and once during the afternoon topic sessions. At the end of every working day, we plan to organise self-reflection and evaluation sessions led by trainers and the staff team.

During the evenings, we are planning to organise some free time activities. Still, participation in them will be voluntary based, and participants will have a chance to develop them on their own mostly. Such activities are intercultural nights where they will have an opportunity to present their countries, cultures, traditions, food, and drinks through interactive games or presentations; NGO fair where participants will be able to present their organisations and the regular work they do in local communities. 

The whole training course will be based on non-formal education and learning by doing methods. We are planning to use general methods: working in smaller groups, interactive and creative presentations, brainstorming, working in national groups, simulation activities, role plays, etc. 

PREPARATION FOR THE TRAINING COURSE

In preparation for the training course, selected participants will be invited to do a short survey and collect relevant data and information from their organisation and country – to be used for discussions and parts of the sessions within the training course activity.

Objectives:

To strengthen partner youth organisations and their staff for organising activities in field of media literacy and democracy, in order to increase participation of young people in democratic societies of local communities.

To raise understanding and knowledge of participants on media literacy and impact media have on young people and their participation in democratic societies.

To develop and further improve knowledge of participants about Erasmus+ program and available activities in the fields of democracy and media literacy, as well as about the Youthpass and recognition of learning through models of key competences. 

To explore the role of media as a social institution and media as a source of information

To learn how to critically examine how media is constructed and how those elements contribute to the way media is understood and acted upon, with focus on young people and participation.

To provide opportunity and support for participants to develop new local and international activities and initiatives, focused on the topics of media literacy and democracy, and youth participation in democratic lives of local communities.