FIRST STEP TO EUROPE - boosting active citizenship among youth in small cities

"<< Background >>In very simple words – we applied for this project to encourage young people from small towns and rural areas to become more active in social life and bring young people closer to the European Union. Partner organizations operate at this lowest local level and convince young people that it is worth to be active, showing the benefits by shaping the skills and attitudes of young people. We wanted to show that the European Union is not only Brussels or Strasburg, but that we are all part of it and that we all create Europe. The “first step” in the title of the project was a step taken, on the one hand, by partner organizations to international activities, and on the other hand, by young people, who, for the most part, for the first time had have contact with the Erasmus+ Program, international activities and contact people from other countries. The project was focused on long-term cooperation and build local networks with associated partners in the local ground. We sew a strong need to invest in young people from smaller cities and show them that Europe is ALL of us and that no one is excluded from enjoying the privileges of being a European. Activities, goals and results exceeded all our expectations. << Objectives >>""Youth is our future"" - this slogan has never been as relevant as it has been in our time. In times of Extreme Right Movements, opposition between member states, climate crisis, raise of hate speech, intolerance, discrimination and racism, COVID-19 pandemic, there is hope in youth for building a common, civic and green Europe. This sentence from application form was even more important when on February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and change our lives. Then with even more determination we carried out our project. The main goal of the project was to build a strong and long-term partnership of organizations dealing with the social inclusion of young people from smaller cities and rural areas (and thus strengthen the potential of our organizations) and encourage young people to invest themselves in their local communities and to participate in non-formal education and spread knowledge about European Union and common values. We carried out the activities in accordance with the principle of ""nothing about us without us"", promoting active citizenship, young people's sense of initiative and youth entrepreneurship and European Education. << Implementation >>The main project activities were 4 international events in Poland (Starachowice, March/April 2022), Greece (Drama, October 2022), Bulgaria (Sliven, March 2023) and Italy (Conversano, Capurso, Triggiano, April 2023). Each event included: - Youth Civic Festival ""FIRST STEP TO EU"" with the test of knowledge for young people about European Union, debate and lecturers about European Union, - Intercultural workshops with young people in local schools ""Europe is HERE"" about ecology, active citizenship, european values and dezinformation, - Study visits to organizations working with youth and local governments. Additionally, at the end of the project we organized intercultural online workshops with young people who took part in each events where we generated ideas for our future projects. Throughout the duration of the project, we carried out dissemination, information and promotion activities at the local and international level. Management meetings were held regularly. << Results >>The concrete results that we have achieved thanks to the project can be distinguished at the level of our organizations and the young people who took part in the project. The project definitevely strengthen potential of our organizations on many levels: - International cooperation - through new projects and initiatives with partners, - local partnerships and contacts – our organizations became more trustable partners in the local level for local governments and other institutions, - people involved in our NGO - members and volunteers gained fantastic experience, knowledge and skills, because of our activities more young people join us and stay with us Additonally we conducted many events and created many agendas that we are using in our every day activities.Regarding young people, we saw the biggest change and we involved way more people than we anticipated: - they raised EU knowledge, language skills, and international skills and made friends with international peers for a lifetime - together they were working on future project ideas, that we will implement in the near future"