Europe's Alert

Europe is experiencing a great challenge during the last years due to a prolonged financial recession, which affects its population with a variety of ways in several different fields (e.g. societal, economic, psychological, cultural, etc). Among the most threatening consequences of the recession is the loss of faith in traditional values upon which the European social structure has been built, such as human rights, freedom of expression, solidarity, democracy, justice, and law order. It’s fundamental all European citizens to preserve these common values, because when people do not remember their past and their origins are engaged in a self-destructing process. In addition, there is an astonishing observation related to the traditional European values. These values are not solely restricted to Europe but are shared and promoted by the biggest religions of the world.

Therefore, ‘’Europe’s Alert’’ is a project, which will promote the knowledge and understanding of the European values among youth and use the most representative religions as means to underline the fact that these values are beyond borders, thus essential to be preserved for establishing a better quality of life. Consequently, SHARP MINDS will attempt to:
• Promote better understanding of the European values
• Underline the common ground between the global religions and the European values
• Facilitate the development of European identity
• Promote active citizenship
• Support youth to function in a multi- cultural context and accept diversity

SHARP MINDS through the ‘’Europe’s Alert’’ project will promote European citizenship by using non formal methodology and specifically learning by participation, which is considered an appropriate method to promote learning in adult populations. Learning by participation is an individualised approach based on the presupposition that participants are sharing their experiences and though this process are able to acknowledge their needs, as well as the commonalities and diversities with the other members of the group. Youth by participating in the activities of the project will develop or acquire a number of cognitive, social and emotional skills, which will enable them to actively participate in decision- making processes related to their European identity and to act as multiplies in their peer groups.
‘’Europe’s Alert’’ project seeks to realize the above- mentioned goals through the placement of 35 participants from the Youth in Action countries. The project will be implemented during 23 – 30 October, 2013, in Athens, for a period of 7 days.