Keep democracy great!

More and more young people keep losing their faith in the concept of democracy. There is an existing and increasingly harmful trend which can easily lead the European community towards dangerous political structures, such as authoritarian political systems.

According to a Harvard analyses made in 2016 based upon the World Values Surveys (1995-2014) the majority of Millennials (22 – 38-year-old people) in Europe (and in other parts of the world too) keeps questioning the evidence of living in a democracy. For most of them it is not important anymore to live in a democratic society and/or they do not believe anymore in the democratic values.

There are certain factors which created and keep maintaining the disbelief in the democratic values, such as the growing distrust of the key institutions which provide the fundamental rights of the citizens (decision-making and watchdog state bodies), increasing number of populist or anti-establishment leaders and economic dissatisfaction.

The deconsolidation of the democratic values can easily lead to undermine the existing social and legal systems of the member countries of the European Union, mostly the independent courts, the critical media and the rights of minorities.

To avoid the internal turbulences within the societies of the countries of the European Union, the young people shall be educated and promoted for maintaining the democratic values and structures, eg. by explaining them the elements and the importance of the democratic concept.

The youth workers of the project partners identified the need to be improved in deeper understanding of the concept of democracy and they need the skills and competences how to transfer the knowledge to young people on local activities.

Therefore, the aim of the project is to promote and maintain the current democratic values and strengthen the belief of its importance amongst young people through local activities organised by youth workers.
To reach the aim of the project, the partners identified the following objectives:
a) youth workers will have deeper a knowledge upon the meaning of democracy, its importance and the effects of its slowly disappearance
b) youth workers will have a deeper knowledge upon the European Union and its democratic values
c) youth workers will have a deeper understanding upon the current political issues and processes which decrease the strength of democracy, such as Euroscepticism and populism
d) youth workers will gain knowledge about media literacy and critical thinking as a way of preserve the democratic values
e) youth workers will gain skills how to promote democracy amongst young people by non-formal methods
f) youth workers will gain skills how to promote media literacy, critical thinking and detect fake news amongst young people by non-formal methods
g) youth workers will gain skills how to create new non-formal methods in a multinational team
h) youth workers will gain public speaking skills in order to present a non-formal method confidently
i) youth workers will be more aware of the current political issues
j) youth workers will be more confident to organise local activities upon promoting the values of democracy designed by non-formal methods.

These objectives will be reached through a 9-day-long Training Course organised in Slettestrand, Denmark between 4th and 11th of December 2020 including 2 travel days, with the participation of 28 youth workers, including 3 trainers.

If you are interested to be partner in this project and are able to send 3-4 relevant youth workers to the training course, please send your updated PIF to Bertalan Egry, bertalan@intercollege.info