Developing Democratic Sustainability Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing Democratic Sustainability

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The project “Developing Democratic Sustainability” (DEMOS) at young adult education institutions goes back to the observation at the participating schools in Sweden and Germany that a considerable percentage of students have been moving away intellectually and emotionally from the idea of democracy and thus, a united Europe. In the case of Iceland it is chiefly the challenges that democracy is facing through environmental crises that has motivated the school to join this project. These are reasons why we will devise a guideline for activites on democracy education, carry them out at the participating schools, put most of the ideas into practice, and eventually attempt to implement sustainable measures of democracy education in the participating institutions. Thus, we are planning on motivating young adult students for the idea of a democratic Europe and getting involved in promoting this idea in their environment so that they can become active promoters and multipliers of democracy in Europe.
The core group of the project will consist of about 10-15 students in each institution, accompanied by 2-3 teachers. The participating students will have to be active, communicative, and politically interested persons in order to meet the long-term goal of supporting democracy in their local communities. Teachers and students will meet on a regular basis at their own schools for the development of activites on democracy education. Topics in this context will be the history and the structure of the European Union, the current chances of and challenges to a European unity, visions of the future of democracy in Europe, and debates on how to actively support existing democratic structures respectively promote necessary changes to the way democracy is run in order to make it sustainable.
Four meetings will be scheduled. To start off with the participating teachers will acquire expertise on necessary topics like communication, democracy education, etc. This event will be followed up by a visit of teachers and students to Brussels in order to become familiar with E.U. institutions and to meet E.U. parlamentarians. Thirdly, we will hold a workshop on the future of democracy in Europe in order to keep the vision of united and democratic Europe alive. Finally, we want to put ideas from the work done in the project into practice to make the effectiveness of the project visible at a “Day of Democracy”.
What is more, we are expecting each participating institution to establish a local political network thought to provide a chance to not only broaden the schools’ democratic horizon but also to become part of an active group of local players supporting democratic ideas in their communities.
To make the European idea become fruitful the participating schools will contribute their strengths to the successful outcome of the project: Bielefeld will provide a focus on democratic Germany’s coping with its past as well as connections to a number of local and national politicians, Mullsjö will share their unique experiences with their well-established International Relations as well as Refugees class with a focus on teaching democracy, whereas Reykjavik will concentrate mainly on the relation of democracy and the environment as well as on the connection between language and democratic maturity.
In the long run we are expecting to achieve a deeper awareness of the benefits of the transnational, multiperspective, and partipational cooperation in this project as an added value because these are essential factors that represent the very core of democracy in Europe. Having experienced this joint effort – thus social responsibilitiy for the project group as well as for their environment – and still being active in support of democracy after the project will help the participating students to appreciate the meaning of the democratic foundations in Europe and will contribute to maintain the benefits of democracy in the three partner schools and their local communities. Last but not least, we are hoping to achieve confidence in our students that they can shape their own future by getting involved.

Project Website

https://www.team-demosprojekt.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 98761 Eur

Project Coordinator

Westfalen-Kolleg Bielefeld & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Mullsjö folkhögskola
• Menntaskolinn vid Hamrahlid