www.euvaluesproject.com

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

Young people and especially those with fewer opportunities have been strongly affected by different economic crises and recessions, the last one being due to COVID pandemic that considerably impacted their perspectives of future and created a general distrust toward policy makers. Indeed, it is undeniable that, since the Covid-19 pandemic, a big portion of citizens have a negative perception of the EU. This negative feeling is further triggered by the loss of jobs and lack of welfare measures to sustain our citizens during these hard times. This situation is negatively affecting our youth (our future) which is constantly undermined by fake news and negative messages from any sort of media. Different Eurobarometers published since 2016 show that youth feel, more than others, marginalized from their economic and social lives, they don’t think that their voice is being heard. While working with youth, partners face the limited understanding of youth about how the Union and its institutions work. They observe that too many of them do not know their EU capitals or ignore the difference between the European Council or the Council of Europe. As a consequence, many youths, especially those belonging to groups at risk of exclusion, are unaware of the opportunities that EU programs can offer them. To answer this need, workers and volunteers supporting youth lack innovative teaching material, which they can use to cover this lack of knowledge. As youth support organisations, we need to improve the way we explain and publicize the opportunities that the EU offers, thus helping to better understand the EU and its values.

Therefore, in this context was conceived the idea of EU Values: “Strategic Partnership aimed at increasing youth awareness of common European values while participating in Erasmus+ initiatives” which is a 2 years Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in the field of Youth that involves 6 partners from 5 countries (Greece, Spain, Netherlands, Italy and France), who will work together addressing young people (18-29 years old) and all people in general who work with the Erasmus+ programme in the development of a youth competence profile that recognise the values and institutions of the European Union, becoming an agent of change, working on the development of associated competences, linked to citizens’ participation on the one side, but also on the acceptance and application of some of our European key values of inclusion, diversity, welfare and sustainability, on the other.

PROJECT RESULTS

During the 2 years of project implementation EU Values aims to develop the following list of Outcomes & Project results (PRs):

• A multi-level project website available in 6 Programme’s languages (EN/GR/IT/NL/ES/FR) & Social Media pages.
• PR1: EU Framework of Knowledge for Youth: The aim of this result is to create a competence framework through which the current level of young people’s knowledge of EU values ​​will be reviewed and their future needs assessed. For this, a survey and discussion groups will be created. At least 360 representatives (300 youth and 60 youth workers/Educators working with youngsters) will be reached and directly involved in this development of this activity and result.
• PR2: Online Training Course and Teaching Notes: Online Training and interactive resources available in 6 different languages, where at least 180 youth, among which 75 facing obstacles, and 30 youth workers (for a total of 210 participants) will test first-hand our online training and teaching notes during this result.
• PR3: Educational Game App: an Interactive e-game that will combine entertainment with acquisition and improvement of EU related knowledge and values, and it will be achieved through a specially designed game engine suitable for web browsers and mobile devices such as tablets. For this result, 180 youth and 30 youth workers will be invited to test first-hand the APP.
• A final set of 6 Multiplier Events (E1-E6) will take place in each Country relying on 35 attendees from the project Target Groups. (210 Attendees in Total).

TARGET GROUPS

• Young people (18 to 29 years old) and especially young people with fewer opportunities;
• Youth workers and all people in general who work with the Erasmus+ programme;
• Youth Associated Partners;
• Public Administrations;
• Youth education departments of local/regional/national stakeholders;
• Local youth migrant organisations, among others.