Toolbox of NFL activities for citizenship education and active citizenship

Aims of the tool

- To raise awareness about citizenship in general and European citizenship in particular by exploring the concepts, their dimensions, their contemporary meanings, understandings and ways they are used.

- To encourage active participation of young people in socio-political democratic life on local, national and European level in order to strength young people voice in Europe by using different tools for empowerment.

- To raise the awareness about the learner centred approach in developing Non-formal educational activities for young people on the topic of citizenship education, European Citizenship and active participation while motivating youth workers, youth leaders and organisations to use it in their work.

Description of the tool

Many of recent reports and studies state that people, especially young people, are losing community ties, have little or no interest and knowledge in economic, social and political processes and have low level of trust in democratic institutions and political representatives. This leads to weakened sense of citizenship and engagement in social and political life. In European Union context, these tendencies of low engagement and participation are expressed even more, especially when it comes to young people.

Youth organisations and youth work in general, especially youth organisations working with citizenship education and active citizenship can address above mentioned issues and encourage, educate, train and engage European youth to take active part in society. In order to achieve this, youth workers and youth leaders need to be trained and acquire competences on how to organize and run activities that aim to motivate and educate young people about (active) citizenship, the European Union and participation in political, economic and social life by promoting European citizenship, European awareness, European identity, European values and active participation.

This Toolbox provides concrete non-formal learning tools that can support youth workers and young people to organise activities that can engage active youth participation and educate youth about citizenship, citizens rights, European values and benefits of active participation.

The Toolbox is created by participants of the Training course "Active Europeans for Active Citizenship", organised in Belgrade, Serbia from 2nd to 10th of March 2016. The Training course is part of a project funded by the EACEA through the Erasmus+ programme. More information about the project can be found on: www.activeeuropeans.wordpress.com