Search for European Projects

Közösségi vita - vitázó közösségek
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Aug 31, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The background of the project: The aim of DIA?s 5 year long project entitled Have your say was to create opportunities for young people to get acquainted with democratic values and to acquire democratic skills. Besides learning how to become responsible citizens, through creative problem solving the can actively contribute to finding solutions to the social problems in their environment. The 5th year of the programme was built around those aims taking into consideration the achievements and the experiences of previous years. The implementation was realized by DIA staff and 6 mentor teachers who had gone through a number of DIA trainings and organized several consultation sessions in previous years. The schools where those mentor teachers work took an active part int he realization of the programme, thus the experience and the invaluable support of the headmasters made it possible that 6 structured dialogue pilot schools be created in six different cities of Hungary. Those are necessary for the longer term sustainability of the programme, so that programmes can be managed directly and that local capacity be available. Goals and objectives: Our primary goal was to involve young people in discussions on EU-related matters and dilemmas, in the dialogue with local decison makers int he framework of the Structured Dialogue process. It was also our aim to develop participants? debating and argumentation skills through a specific methodology called community debate, in order for them to get to know the core values of democratic debate and to widen their knowledge about the EU. We also aimed at showing the level of creativity and the potential caracteristic of young people when given space and opportunity for sensible debate and argumentation. Building on previous experiences and achievements, we aimed at creating the regional network of Structured Dialogue Initiatives. At the moment, the network counts 36 secondary schools and 93 teachers. One of the innovative aspects of the project was the international perspective of dissemination. The modell developed by DIA and the opportunities offerred by the Structured Dialogue process were shared at an international workshop where 10 practitioners got to know the method and worked on its potential implementation. Caracteristiques of participants?, their background, numbers: Young people: Typically 14 to 19 year olds participated in the project. As opposed to the planned 1200, 1728 had been involved. They participated in the consultation sessions and int he interviews necessary for the summary of the consultation sessions. They filled out the questionnaires as well as 20 university students. Decision makers: 234 experts and decision makers were involved in 78 consultation sessions. They were typically experts in certain fields such as freedom of speech, employability or civic rights. Youth workers, educators: Out of 100 applicants 93 accomplished the programme: participated int he initial training, the group mentoring sessions and they carried out at least one consultation session. They are members of DIA?s debate network who reguraily receive information through a mailing list, DIA?s Newsletter and its facebook page. Description of the activities: 1. Kick-off meeting for the mentor teachers 2. Training sessions 3. Group mentoring sessions 4. Consultation sessions 5. The summary of the outcomes of the Consultation sessions entitled: The Public sphere and politics from young people?s point of view 6. International dissemination 7. Closing planning meetings 8. Closing events The results of the project, its impact and its long term advantages: As a result of the project a network of like-minded institutions and educators was created the members of which carried out the consultation sessions in cooperation and who are committed to further cooperation. As a result of the conitunued efforts made by programme staff and the regular mentoring, the participating educators and professionals became capable of managing projects by themselves and as compared to the average Hungarian teachers, they are way more pro-active and their methodological toolkit is much more sophisticated. This year, another 1728 students had a chance to experience democratic debate, the balanced dialogue of people coming from different backgrounds. It was emphasized by several participants that this has a very positive impact on the students even on an every day level since their debate culture developed, thus their level of agressivity decreased and their level of empathy increased considerably.
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details