A training to be informed, develop critical thinking, and take part in the political life of our surroundings.
From the 23rd to 26th January 2023 the Capacity Building and mutual learning for NGOs organized as part of the project AP8 – Activ8 & Particip8 took place online. The participation was significant, as various representatives of non-governmental organization from several European countries took part in the Capacity Building. As demonstrated by the many questions and interventions during the 4 modules developed by the trainers, the participation was very active.
The first module, developed by ACP (Greece), explored the theme of digital citizenship, focusing on digital civic participation and e-democracy. The second module, developed by CESIE (Italy) concerned e-citizen skills, fake news and the disinformation. The problem of fake news has assumed increasingly worrying dimensions over time, negatively influencing the political and social life of the country. For this reason, providing useful tools to defend oneself is of fundamental importance given the growing wave of disinformation we are facing.
The third and fourth modules were developed by ESN Dubrovnik (Croatia), which outlined what are the civic technological tools, such as the active monitoring of public policies; moreover, the importance of the instrument of voting was underlined, as a deeper involvement in the European democratic life.
For each day there was the participation of over 30 people from the world of NGOs and the third sector, who could deepen their knowledge on the following topics: disinformation, NGOs, participation in the creation of community policies, active citizenship, value of vote in representation, democracy, use new tools for e-democracy.
Participation was very active and dynamic, despite the difficulties that can arise during an online training course. This dynamism has been evident while the trainers were carrying out the activities, a good tool to give to the participants the opportunity to express themselves and discuss related issues with the rest of the group on topics concerning the power of images.
The discussion started from a few questions:
- How can news be shared objectively?
- How can we develop reasoning that goes deep without dwelling on a superficial description?
From the training it emerged that there is strong interest from NGOs staff and third sectors workers to address the various issues belonging to the European citizenship. The importance of actively participating in the political life of the European Community was underlined in various interventions by the participants. Numerous ideas have emerged, starting from the definition of useful tools to defend against fake news up to the need to go further a superficial analysis when examining an image or an article, passing through the importance of the voting tool as a fundamental element of democracy.
Moments like these are important for both the conductor and the listener, a moment of reciprocal sharing is created where everyone can express themselves and can contribute to the improvement of democratic life in Europe, and in the world.
To participate in the next activities of the AP8 project, write to Enrico Casacchia at email enrico.casacchia@cesie.org
About the project
AP8 – Active8 & Particip8 is a project finances by the program Erasmus+ – European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), CERV-2022-CITIZENS-CIV, Citizens’ engagement and participation strand.
Partners
- CESIE (Italy, coordinator)
- ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK (ESN) Dubrovnik (Croatia)
- ACTIVE CITIZENS PARTNERSHIP (Greece)
For further information
Read the project cheet.
Contact youth@cesie.org
