Democracy and Equality Matters for Our Society – Political participation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Democracy and Equality Matters for Our Society – Political 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 : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Social dialogue

Project Summary

The value of democracy is at stake in Europe. In some countries, a sceptical or negative attitude to democratic processes has emerged. It is becoming increasingly evident that substantial sections of European societies have either lost faith in the democratic process or feel there is no point in participating.
This partnership has enabled our target groups to participate more actively and more inclusively in the societies in which they live in our respective countries.
Every partner produced a country report about the political landscape; worked on a needs analysis identifying its special target groups the partner wants to focus on.
Beside these reports every partner gathered best practice examples in its country, a valuable tool for interested political parties, special interest groups like chamber of commerce, chambers of labour, trade unions, NGOs etc
During the workshop – final step of the project work – the partners identified one or more best practices from the other partners to be realised in one’s own institution thus strengthening the idea of sustainability.

Objectives
The exchange of information between the partners was fulfilled on a high level; the different country reports gave an insight on the political landscape far beyond the average consumption of news from the partner countries.
The importance of political education in our institutions was raised, and will lead to new educational offers in every partner country.
The collection of best practices is a valuable tool for other educational stakeholders in the partner countries, and will lead to different new formats in reaching out to the target groups we identified.
The feasibility studies we worked on during the LTTA are deepening the idea of sustainability and are a promise for the future, and will lead to different other activities in the partner countries.

Participants
The target groups of the DEMOS Project were people who may not be fully aware of their rights and responsibilities while living under a democracy, they may also display low levels of civic engagement and low patterns of voting e.g.
• New and hard to reach migrant groups, refugees and asylum seekers (AT, IE, FI, SE)
• Younger learners especially those from marginalised and underserved communities (CZ, BG, RO)
• Adults from marginalised and underserved communities (BG, IE, AT, DE)
• Women – particularly as they are proportionately underrepresented in our parliaments (PL, BG, RO, FI)
Multi sectorial Partner Groups were another target group of interest to the DEMOS project, particularly those who operate in the civic space and who work with underserved communities to promote civic and political engagement e.g. MEP’s, political institutions such as the local Councils, political parties, third level Institutions – departments with a remit around politics and civics, arts organisations who can collaborate with us on this project.

Activities
We produced 9 country reports including a needs analysis and the target group every partner will focus on
Collection of best practices in the partner countries
Realising one of the best practices in one’s own institution during the project
Collection of feasibility studies. Every partner chose one of the best practices from the other partners and will realise this example in its own institution after the projects end
The consortium organised 5 project meetings and an LTTA.

Results – Impact
• Country reports
• Collection of best practices
• Feasibility study
We learned innovative methods for reaching marginalised groups and we will integrate these into future educational provision.
This lead to a higher degree of political and social inclusion and already offered new perspectives to our target groups.

Longer-term benefits
Political participation is a main topic in the national discussions on improving our societies. As we learned many innovative examples during the project every partner will spread the information nationally and thus influence the future political landscape. Times are over when political parties just presented their program for the elections and the only thing voters had to do is make their mark at the voters bulletin every 4 or 5 years. Participatory budgeting, referendum on cities or districts decision about traffic, urban planning, fighting the climate change are political models for the future. As long as educational institutions are partners in the development of societies they will be playing an important role in this whole spectrum.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 109575 Eur

Project Coordinator

DIE WIENER VOLKSHOCHSCHULEN GMBH & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Instytut Tolerancji w Łodzi
• Volkshochschule Leipzig
• Media Partners SRL
• ABF
• Mezigenerace z.s.
• Helsingin kaupunki
• Knowledge Association Lovech