Young people's citizenship and Europe: online course for youth workers

Have a first glance of what the course will be all about in this introductory video!

The online course Europe and young people: How citizenship works in the European context? is meant for youth work practitioners who want to challenge their notions of Europe and citizenship. The course provides new insights on these topics and possibilities to explore ways to address them with young people. The course is consisted of animated videos, interactive inputs, practical tasks and inspiring webinars.

The aim of the online course is to increase youth work practitioners’ understanding on the topics of Europe and citizenship and to explore concrete approaches and methods to address them with young people in local and transnational youth work in Europe.

The course will provide a space and opportunities to:

• explore and challenge the learners' notions of Europe and citizenship and provide them with new insights; 
• become more aware of the civic, political and social issues that are important for young people across Europe;
• find and make connections between local youth work practice and transnational youth work in Europe;
• discover possibilities for transnational cooperation aimed at supporting young people’s active citizenship in Europe.

The course takes place in the Canvas online learning platform. Enrolment is open already now and its is possible to check the course description, introduce oneself and get ready for the course to start on 15th of November 2021.

The course is structured in six modules, which will be opened gradually over six weeks. In addition to the modules in Canvas, there will be two meetups and four webinars that will also include guest speakers, providing additional reflections on the topics.

Modules

• In search for Europe: What is Europe (in all its complexity)? 
• Building tomorrow’s Europe: What kind of Europe do we want? 
• Me, you(th) and Europe: How does Europe shape who we are? 
• Young people’s citizenship in Europe: How do we come together in Europe? 
• Young people and Europe: How do we make change in Europe? 
• Where do we go from here? (as youth workers) 

The course is free and open for anyone, but is built mainly for youth work practitioners, who want to increase their understanding on the topics of Europe and citizenship and to explore approaches for addressing them with the young people they are working with.

!! Enrol now !!

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Background 

Having citizens that stand for democracy, participation, human rights and equality is a part of the ongoing process of creating a peaceful and inclusive Europe. Education, specifically education for democratic citizenship and human rights education, which often take place outside of the school curricula, gives space for young people to develop their attitudes, knowledge and skills as citizens concerned with societal issues from the local to the global level, including also the European level.

SALTO SEE Resource Centre together with several National Agencies for the Erasmus+: Youth in Action and European Solidarity Corps Programmes (namely Austrian, German, Latvian Polish and Slovenian), as well as the EU-CoE Youth Partnership in the field of youth, have been highlighting the topic of active European citizenship and identity in several cooperation projects in the past years. The activities have reaffirmed the strong need to support youth work practitioners and citizenship educators with concrete tools and methods in bringing Europe closer to young people.

SALTO SEE Resource Centre, the EU-CoE Youth Partnership and the German, Polish and Slovenian National Agencies have developed an online course for youth workers on the topic. The course is consisted of several inputs and activities, which aim and giving the learners a better insight on the topic of citizenship in the European context and how they can address it with young people. The course will be launched in November 2021 and the registration will open in October 2021.

The online course is based on and utilises the results of past cooperation on this topic, namely the Learning Programme Youthful Europe (2011 – 2018), Forum “Raise your voice for tomorrow’s Europe” (2017), the seminar "Young people’s citizenship and Europe: which ways forwards?" (2018), Forum Edu4Europe (2019) and the seminar Rediscovering Europe with young people (2019). The topic has been elaborated also in the Coyote online magazine's 25th edition, which was dedicated entirely to citizenship education in Europe.