How to promote civic engagement and active participation of young people?
My Elections – My EU! involved about 25 young people in two European countries, addressing crucial issues such as “migration” and “climate change.” The journey ended in October in Brussels at the European Parliament with a beautiful and moving performance art. After a year of work, more than 20 local and national workshops organized in Italy, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, and 3 international workshops organized in Italy (Lampedusa), Austria (Zicksee) and Belgium (Brussels), the My Elections – My EU! youth team concluded its journey at the European Parliament with an artistic-political performance in front of the newly elected members of the European Parliament.
Migration in Europe and climate change were the two main topics, the theme of the performance and of the project itself. Over the past year and the many workshops organized locally, nationally and internationally, those who participated had the opportunity to gain knowledge and concepts on the two topics, meet experts and create their own thinking, while working with arctic-creative methods to strengthen their expressive skills. All this, allowed them to construct an artistic performance, through which, at the conclusion of the last workshop in Brussels, the young people represented their ideas and thoughts and at the end of which they had the opportunity to put their questions and requests to the MEPs, establishing a dialogue and contributing to a process of social change, in which young people are not often involved.
The pathway itself and the final performance were very successful, with great impact on the attendees and MEPs who expressed appreciation and interest and showed positive emotions. The journey does not end here! Now the project partnership is working on making all the materials and activities carried out during this first year of the project public and usable, in order to enable other youth workers and organizations to replicate this successful experience. All of this will be collected in the My Elections My EU digital toolkit, which will be launched in the coming months.
To learn more about the project and learn about all the news contact Giulia Siino: giulia.siino@cesie.org.
About the project
My Elections – My EU! is a project funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme – Cooperation Partnership in the field of youth, which aims to help young people to understand and critically reflect on European election programmes and to develop their own demands based on real experiences, thus increasing voter participation in the 2024 European elections.
Partners
- SUDWIND VEREIN FUR ENTWICKLUNGSP OLITIK UND GLOBALE GERECHTIGKEIT (Austria, coordinator)
- Ekumenická akademie, z. s. (Czech Republic)
- Fundacja Kupuj Odpowiedzialnie (Poland)
- Teatro Atlante Cooperativa Sociale (Italy)
- CESIE (Italy)
- DRUŠTVO HUMANITAS – CENTER ZA GLOBALNO UČENJE IN SODELOVANJE (Slovenia)
- Fundacja Sztukmistrze (Poland)
- Kulturno umetniško društvo Transformator (Slovenia)
- FUORI – Verein für performative Kunst (Austria)
- Prosvěta s.r.o. (Czech Republic)
For further information
Read more about the project.
Contact Giulia Siino: giulia.siino@cesie.org.
