Inclusion Through Democratic Participation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inclusion Through Democratic Participation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The background for this project is a growing concern about the political outlook many youths have today. This concern seems to be justified by research conducted by the World Value Survey network, which finds a positive correlation between age and regard for democratic principles. Further, an important antidote to political apathy is found to be the empowerment of ordinary citizens, and this is exactly what we aim to do. Through our project, the students will experience first hand the process of implementing change through political involvement following democratic principals.

The partners in this project are upper secondary schools in Spain, Greece, Romania, Poland, Latvia, and Norway. From each school, 4 teachers and 10 students participate in the various mobilities – 24 teachers and 60 students in all. The students are between 16 and 18 years old. In addition to the students and teachers selected for mobilities, a much larger number of students and teachers are engaged in the project at each school locally. Directly involved, but not partners in the project, are also local politicians, administration and businesses. These have a supporting and educational role in the project, where they give necessary background information and help the students with the implementation of their inclusion projects. Lastly, we also view the public in general as indirect participants in this project, as we want to spread the project idea, the activities, and the result to a much larger audience through sustained use of both traditional and social media.

The planned activities include using a common method of research to map socially excluded groups in our own societies, sharing the results with a pre-selected partner school, visiting the school and representatives of the local community to plan a measure to further social inclusion, and finally, implementing and monitoring that measure the next twelve months. The students will work continuously throughout this period, both with the measure itself and gathering and sharing information surrounding the project. This includes a baseline survey, describing the measure and its implementation, and finally, an outcome survey. The dissemination is also a key part of our project, and it will probably help us multiply the degree to which many of the objectives will be achieved.

Our overarching narrow objective is to show students that you can help improve social inclusion in a local community through active political involvement within a democratic framework. By this, we do not mean that all the efforts made by the students must be fruitful for this project to be successful, but that they see how the political system works, what possibilities there are, and that the different authorities in some way will have to respond to your efforts to implement change. This feedback will, in turn, make new discussions and efforts possible. Through this, the participants will see that change is possible, even though the timeframe and number of compromises in each particular case might vary. Our belief is that the efforts to build bridges between marginalized groups and society in general, will impact the students greatly and give them a better understanding of the reasons leading to exclusion.

Our overarching broad objective is to help lay the foundation for further integration of Europe. This will not be possible, or at least much more difficult, if we do not have social bonds and cultural knowledge in place. Although a project like this is undoubtedly only a small part of such a great undertaking, it is none the less important, as there exists no one, unified project that will make the integration happen. Only through a plethora of smaller initiatives and projects, involving a large number of people with a deep understanding of the processes involved, will this integration come about. We think that our three priorities; youth empowerment, language education, and social inclusion; will be key in this transition.

Through this project, we hope to influence and shape the leaders and citizens of tomorrow. This project will undoubtedly have a lasting positive impact on both the active participants and the general audience. The main long term benefit of the project is that the process it stipulates will serve as a guideline for further political engagement. The students will know how to proceed if they want to change or improve something in society, and the same general template can even be used on a national and international level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 197755 Eur

Project Coordinator

Mysen videregaende skole & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. ks. Piotra Skargi w Sedziszowie Mlp.
• Colegio Jesús-María El Cuco
• Cesu Secondary School
• Liceul Teoretic Nicolae Balcescu Medgidia
• 4th GEL Herakliou