You-Democracy

You-Democracy

Even if a lot of nations in the world describe themselves as democratic, they have different degrees and ways in applying the principles of democracy.
To consider a nation as democratic, a deep analysis has to be done. Beyond the experiences of every nation and of the European Union, it is widely acknowledged that the spread of democracy also implies the creation one culture as well as the dissemination of an education based on democratic values, on freedom, justice, equality and solidarity.

The aim of the You-Democracy project (by complying with the context of the new European Union competences of 2010 art. 165, that encourages the active participation of youths in the democratic life in Europe), is to compel the participants to:

Reflect and discuss on the democratic values, gaining in sensible vision and evaluation of its deep meaning, beyond the specific aspects in which it is applied in various contexts;
Learn the functioning of the democratic institutions;
Bind young people more closely to the democratic life and to approach single people and associations who are still active in it.
Have an opportunity to exercise concrete democratic practices.
Understand which ways are used to form the public opinion in the civilized society in order to be able to exercise on that a real democratic control.
Create an exchange framework at a European level for the development and the spread of the good practices of democracy among youths.
The reflection will include the most important events of the international context as well as the everyday life experiences of the participants. All that will lead to the creation of a shared platform, where partners will have the opportunity to load short films, video interviews and documents about democracy and its application at a local level.

Activities at national level

General aims
To reflect, discuss and endorse the values of democracy;
To learn the functioning of the democratic institutions;
To actively pursue the ways of interaction (positive or negative) used by the information and the communication (media) in the creation of both public opinion and democratic practices.
Bind young people more closely to the democratic life and to approach single people and who are still active in it by giving them some opportunities to make experiences of democratic practices in real operational contexts;
To create an exchange network at a European level for the development and the spread of the good practices in the field of participation and communication.

Specific aims
To reflect on the origin, the identity and on our culture in order to compare it with the one of the “others”;
To educate in visual communication teaching how to produce and interpret the videos.
To learn how to live together “democratically” trough the participative creation of a short film.
To understand the basics for the execution of a short film in all his stages, from the realization to the diffusion.
To know and be able to use the Creative Commons Licenses.

The SHORT FILMS will be executed through the “videopartecipato” (all the participants have a leading role in the realization of the videos) mode, in an informal context of acknowledgement that will allow young people to apply the knowledge achieved “learning to participate” and to use their voice.
The youths will create and tell a story through the participative realization of a short film which main issues are: democracy and how it works at local and at European level; the creation of a democratic culture; the spread of the democratic values as justice, equality, freedom and solidarity; the spread of democratic practices.
The first stage (raising consciousness and acquisition of the democratic strategies) will be created through concrete contacts and examples of “the workings of democracy”. Mention is made of current situation and of everyday life of each participant.
The second stage “the story” young people will be helped to reflect and discuss on the previous issues in order to let them build a story that takes their experiences into account; it will be converted into a script and then enacted. To reach this goal they will use books, newspaper articles, captivating questionnaires and specific techniques for the creation of a “healthy” group ready to collaborate in the execution of a common final product.
The third stage “The democratic troupe” The trainers (the experts in video making) will provide the basic notions on how a troupe is organized and which are the main tools (cameras, microphone etc) to create a short film.
The distribution of tasks in the troupe will be decided on the basis of the skills of each participant and on the needs of the entire group, as an example of democratic work. During this stage it will be decided also the schedule of the shooting (location, costumes etc.). This stage will have a continuous interaction with local institutions and associations in order to involve them and let them participate to the process.
The fourth stage “between words and deeds” creation of the short film, with the continuing involvement of the reference groups.
The fifth stage Short film editing
The sixth stage “Let’s spread the democratic culture” Showing of the final product to the citizens, reflection and discussion on the achieved goals.
Writing of a final report on the work: reflections, advices, doubts, critiques, learned notions etc. This stage is very important because it ends the laboratory cycle and allows to discover and “think together” on what have been achieved in order to spread “democracy”.

The videointerviews and the documents will be created by developing a dialogue with the local institutions and the citizens. The aim is to:
Explore the local decision-making systems according to the European Directives;
Bring the youths closer to the political decision-makers;
Bring institutions closer to the citizens.

Activities at European level

Periodical meetings (also by using Skype)
European network
Multimedia platform

At the time of the project a small crew (3-4 boys for each country) will be created and it will be in charge of having contacts and communicate with the civil society giving information on the stages of the project.
The crew will participate to the organization and to the creation of the “Festival” which is the final event that will take place in Italy (in the city of Pavia). The aim of this event is to spread the products created during the execution of the project and also to widen the principles of democracy.

All the material produced will be spread through the use of the Creative Commons Licenses (www.creativecommons.it), that allows a free and democratic diffusion of the culture without being under the Copyright law.