Youth for Youth – for an open and secure world wide web Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth for Youth – for an open and secure world wide web

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Terms such as ‘fake news‘, ‘filter bubble’ and ‘hate speech’ have become buzzwords of our time, delineating an ever confusing media landscape. What must be understood as representing an inextricable part of this development is the discernible shift to the right in Europe – and thus the increase of racism. Our transnational Youth Initiative “Youth for Youth – for an open and secure world wide web ” confronts these contemporary and supranational issues at hand, by bringing together two different groups of politically engaged young adults in the field of youth education: Each group consists of four individuals. While the first group, coming from Austria, has been particularly involved in promoting media literacy in teaching and research, the second group, coming from Germany, has devoted itself to offering various workshops combating hate.speech and other forms of discrimination. The groups’ expertise in these areas shall be systematically and synergistically used, so that they may contribute to the resolution of one of the most pressing social issues of our time. In the context of this initiative, the trainings and courses offered by respective groups were continuously refined, so as to develop best practice examples of ways to counter the emergence of discrimination in society. Each group profited from collaboration through shared resources, and therefore, was given access to innovative didactic approaches, new topics and audiences, as well as additional funding and marketing opportunities. Consequently, the groups may take further steps towards professionalizing their programs and thus towards social entrepreneurship. Together, they arranged four transnational meetings, which were held between the groups’ respective work hubs, Vienna and Landshut . After this exchange of experiences, our Youth Initiative has set itself the ambitious objective of providing its services throughout the Austrian and Bavarian cross-border region. Despite a growing demand of such services, a lack thereof had been reported especially to „Digitaler Kompass“ in these area. Here, the initiative operated on two levels: Firstly, the project team assigned a webdesigner to create a website, where the workshops taking place in Austria and Bavaria offered by the youth groups, are collectively presented. Additionally, an array of jointly developed learning concepts and methods is now provided in the form of Open Educational Resources on https://www.meu-initiative.eu. This helps multipliers, i.e. those amplifying and eliciting the knowledge and skills of others (such as teachers or social workers), address the issues at hand in their work. Our services achieve this by particularly focusing on the issues of ‘hate speech’, ’information procurement in times of heightened availability of digital information sources’ and strategic political communication as well as ‘deliberate disinformation’ on the web. Moreover, a five-day training course was held. In this course, young adolescents obtained a media trainer’s education, so as to boost their range of teaching opportunities. To ensure the highest level of professionalism, the participants had to be equipped with first pedagogical education and some pre-knowledge prior to registering for the course. Further, a meaningful geographical distribution in terms of the participants’ center of life was accomplished. Subsequent to the course, the participating young adults were given the opportunity to join and engage in the works of one of the youth groups. Meanwhile, the new services were updated on the website we introduced. Thus the following objectives of the youth initiative were achieved:

• Both youth groups will develop workshops and teaching methods treating of the subjects ‘internet awareness’, ‘media literacy’ and ‘discrimination’ as part of a peer review process.
• The development and creation of a website, on which joint workshops taking place in the border area between Bavaria and Austria are presented
• Publication of jointly developed teaching concepts in the form of Open Educational Resources on the website, specifically intended to reach teachers in Austria and Bavaria
• Expanding the youth groups volume and pool of activities by including young media educators, whose residences are reasonably spread across the target area.

Thus, it is hoped that the initiative’s services may reach all regions within the target area in a sustainable and comprehensive way. The ultimate goal is to offer a meaningful contribution regarding young people’s acquisition of ‘media literacy’ and, thus, to the prevention of discrimination in society. Doing so, we take critical steps towards a more peaceful and respectful climate in Europe. Online and offline.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 44418,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

Digitaler Kompass – Institut für Nachrichtenkompetenz und digitale Bildung & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Medienpädagogik Jugendinitiative