This project contributes to fostering the educational discourse between Czech and German educators working in non-formal educational organizations of Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE). It will debate and affect 4 dimensions of the European youth strategy: learning mobility, non-formal education, youth participation and social inclusion.The project focusses on the bilateral exchange of educational professionals from NGO´s active in the field of non formal Human Rights and democratic Citizenship Education (EDC/HRE) with young people in Czech Republic and Germany. Although in both countries exist support institutions for youth exchange the discussion on the European youth strategy under an EDC/HRE perspective has not yet entered the common educational debate of providers of EDC/HRE in both countries thus resulting in a lack of knowledge, exchange and approaches. This project therfore will be serving as role model for a fostered educational debate on questions of young peoples participation and their involvement in society which directly affect the above mentioned core elements from the European strategy. The project therefore can be named as experiencing Europes core questions in the german-czech nutshell.Two workshops - one in Germany one in the Czech republic - combined with interim online learning phases will be used to deeply explore core topics related to the field of youth participation, Democracy in Europe, mechanisms of access and of in- and ex-clusion in non-formal educational perspective. Specifically, the workshops will tackle the following clusters of questions: • perception of young people on what they define as participation in society in Europe: life based and explorative educational approaches that explore the terminology of young people´s participation under its pre-political dimension• How extremism influences young people´s minds and youth cultural scenes (footbal fan culture, social media, etc)• Multiculturality in society and the migration topic : mechanisms of in- and exclusion• Common history: German-Czech relations as a focal point for history and democracy learning with young people, by using history as a tool for multi-facetted intercultural education in Europe• Non formal Education for Democratic Citizenship in both countries • Anti-racism education, hate crime, hate speech, mechanisms of devaluating groups in society and the risk for democratic participation of young peopleThe methodology follows exploration of life-based approaches of young people. By exploring the rapidly changing living environment and the issues where young peolpe define their opinions, we want to redraw conclusions for new educational approaches that take into account changes in living environment of young adolescents. Thus with the concrete aim to enrich the European professional .educational debate on democratic participation of young people, social inclusion and life opportunities for young people in Europe.We used a variety of methodical approaches for deepening the dialogue: onlinebrainstorming, future labs, site visits, group discussions, debates with resource persons from leading youth research in Germany and the Czech Republic.The broadening and mutual deepening of the educational debate will raise the profile and competences of the participants as well of their organizations. It further will result in new partnerships and exchanges that will adress questions of youth participation in both countries and increase the number of young people who will come into a debate on the above topics. Thus the project Match It will also contribute to a substantial raise of youth mobilities mostly in common seminars, workshops and furth educational settings deriving from new partnerships created by this bilateral project as a long term benefit, thus also to foster the European dialogue and debate on a pedagogy of democratic empowerment that seeks to find answers in the changing living conditions, environments and approaches young people find nowadays.

SemiFit - Seminar for intercultural trainers in HRE -was a space for experienced and emerging youth educational practitioners from different fields to exchange competences and experience on the different domains of intercultural trainings with linking clearly to European Human Rights education and youth work issues. SemiFit in HRE should serve as an example of Peer and Lifelong Learning where educational practitioners have had the chance to share their competencies and experiences and learn new concepts from peers. In SemiFit, every participant was actively involved in the preparation and design of the learning space, content and flow. The project was linked to key European youth policy developments where non-formal educational youth work faces a need to better connect to but also bring in its expertise: the European Youth convention in 2020, the COE rec on Youth work, the European Training Strategy for YW, the development of a European Charta on Youth work, but also reference cooperations such as “Becoming a part of Europe”, “Youth for Human Rights” or digital youth work: all indicate youth issues in Europe become more political. Such there was seen a need to foster strategically the processes of capacity development of EDC/HRE work in the field of youth, as in the recent years barriers in a lot of European countries have become higher. Semifit was developed as a partnersahip for educational practitioners and their organisations to further develop their competences and network with each other. During 3 seminars a total of 85 youth workers, teachers, trainers, facilitators and coaches from 22 organizations active on youth work, human rights and democracy education from 14 different countries: Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy cooperated in seminars on: - Project Management under Erasmus+ in Almuñécar - Spain November / December 2018 - Citizenship Education in Berlin - Germany April/May 2019 and - Blended Learning in Trento - Italy October 2019 Specific objectives of SemiFit: Bringing together educational practitioners from different fields, Designing a space of co-creation and active participation, To develop and exchange competences and experiences on specific areas of training that have an emerging relevance in European Youth Work Co-Creation of tangible resources as a result of seminars’ activities aiming at a follow-up, where participants gad the chance to go further with what they have gained (methodology, tools and connections) in their local reality. The project tried to create an environment for educational practitioners to come together, take different roles and approaches and to be critical upon the methods that they use in their work, such provided a space for them to switch their roles to from educator to participants, expert to learner, contributor to documentalist etc.By gathering qualified people from different education fields - formal and non formal, youth and student organizations, social work and youth work and with different interests the Project facilitated feedback, space for innovative approaches and new opportunities, thus created an environment for learning and sharing. Such it also supporting the processes of European capacity development of youth work organisations and of educators active in the youth field.

"CONTEXT BACKGROUND: Young people in GREECE and GERMANY are currently growing up under largely differing economic and social conditions. The perspective for them to participate in society, to lead and economically independent and self responsible live, to take decisions on their future - all key issues of European youth policies - seem to largely differ, which is the reason why this project is set up: ""GR.A.C.E.- GReek German matchmaking for Active Citizenship Education in youth work"" explores conditions and approaches on democracy (participation of young people in the democratic life) and of youth educational work in both countries with the aim to support pedagogues and youth workers with competencies and skills to create together new cooperations and youth exchanges. ACTIVITIES and METHODILOGY 24 participants - youth workers with a profile of non-formal citizenship work - from the two countries will be by conducting together two workshops to in-deep explore systems, concepts and actors of youth educational work in both countries, in order to develop a common horizon of challenges, topics and approaches to collaborate onwards. Especially they shall develop means to understand, contribute and and make use of the political instrument of the bilateral GREEK GERMAN youth office to be established in 2019 - from a perspective of European policy frames provided in Youth work (eg EU youth strategy, COE - EU youth partnership, NA project YOUTH for HR et al). The activities will be two workshops following a non-formal educational methodology made up as a mixture of pear learning, expert discussions, trainings, reflection groups, field visits all following a participative and learners driven approach. This will enable the participating organisations to strategically identify fields of interest and topics that are highly relevant for young people in both countries to further develop their democratic and social competences in collaborative activities (such as youth exchanges, projects et al). DESIRED IMPACT: The Matchmaking inherently foresees to result in further cooperations and youth exchanges developed by the participants as main goal. Further it shall enable to support the strategic development of youth work under the European policy frames by developing among the participants a systemic understanding of cooperation as mean for structural development and ""Europeanisation"" of the field of youth work. The longer term benefit is first of all a leveling up of participating youth workers (and their organisations) to understand their work in dimensions of European youth policy programming and second the development of an field of expertise in the dimension of AC education in the axis of European South-North ( or North - South) relations - which is in times of multiple (and mostly exclusive) European Union future concepts (as stated in Junkers state f the Union speech in Sept 2017) a field that needs to be strategically strenghtened. With the yet to establish instrument of the Greek German youth office - there is a high potential to develop a policy instrument which can be of a role model, if properly designed, soundly embedded in frames of European youth policy making and set up by both governments to be used accordingly. The GR.A.C.E project will try to investigate the conditions for exactly such an instrument and prepare youth educational civil society and youth organisations to contribute to (and in best case co-program) such an instrument by exploring the policy dimensions such an instrument needs to be working with."

"The project ""ENGAGE - Building together European learning material on Education for Citizenship"" ambitions to create a European interactive, innovative, pedagogical and multilingual module on education for citizenship for pupils aged 8-12 and their teachers. The 11 developed modules are divided in 3 clusters as follows: 1- Me and the others: Emotional Identity, Relationship and Conflict resolution, Children’s rights;2- Society and the world: History and memory, Media education, Diversity and discrimination, Sustainable development, Solidarity;3- Participation in democratic society: Human rights, Democracy, Participation.Our partnership brings together 8 organisations in 7 member States:- France: CIDEM - the project leader- France : Union Régionale de la Ligue de l'Enseignement de Bourgogne- Germany: AdB- Austria: Zentrum Polis- Spain: Fundacion CIVES- Poland: Center for Citizenship Education- United Kingdom: CSV- Belgium: DARE Network, a pan European network with 46 members in all the 28 European States, in charge of the dissemination of the project at the European level.All the partners were selected on the ground of their direct expertise regarding the issue of citizenship education and youth work as well as their experience in the management of European project.ENGAGE project was implemented at both national and European levels. In each participating country, the partner was in charge of setting up a national consortium or a ""working group"" on a cross-sectoral composition which brought together several representatives of the education sector: primary and/ lower secondary schools, one or two teachers; one academic researcher, expert on the issue of citizenship education; one State representative or public-body in charge of education policies. The main task was to conduct a national need analysis and assessment regarding education for citizenship curricula, both in terms of content and methodological approaches. This process led to the draft of a theoretical study and an empirical report to each of the countries involved.The results of the 6 national initiatives were put together, which helped in identifing and addressing issues of common concerns and needs and further defining the content of the pedagogical learning material. This work was useful to shape and develop a common content effective to all 6 partners, and at the same time compliant to their specific national context. The developed learning module translated into the 5 languages of the partners, has two thematic issues: civism and living together in harmony, and general interest and democratic participation.The rationale of the project ENGAGE involves the following: European countries integrate citizenship education into their qualification requirements for teachers and schools, in distinct ways within the EU, notably because of the cultural and historical specifics of each Member State. Moreover, in the EU, education for citizenship, understood in both aspects of living together in harmony and democratic participation, is undergoing similar evolutions. In fact, both thematic areas provided are influenced by similar important issues in the EU Member States, such as for example: the younger electorate were becoming increasingly disengaged with the democratic system and most of them lack interest in politics, at the national and European levels, illustrated by significant abstention rates for voters aged 18-25.On the other hand, the major concerns affecting young people are bound up with globalization, which raises questions of major importance to society, such as European integration, migration movements, and ageing population, thus making the “living together"" education problematic.The political and human horizon of the EU is to have 28 distinct people living together in harmony and to nurture the feeling of belonging to the same common destiny. In the context of rising extremism, intolerance, racism, at the European scale, working together in setting up a European and cross-sectoral platform for cooperation and the exchange of good practices is a highly relevant means to face these common challenges. Therefore, these issues call for new ways of organising teaching and learning in the two subject areas of citizenship education. Indeed, the learning material developed in the framework of the project ENGAGE appears to be the right answer that includes curricular content with a bearing on the European dimension of citizenship education.In a nutshell, the project ENGAGE aims at providing educational personnel (formal and informal) a useful and appropriate tool to tackle the issue of a European citizenship education with young pupils. With the relevant learning supports developed in the framework of the project ENGAGE, the module will be able to foster the living together in harmony and the spirit of citizenship at the local, national, regional and European levels."

"The digital transformation is challenging the European citizens in multiple ways: As employees (workspace 4.0). As learners (lifelong learning, self-competencies) As citizens (acting as conscious, self-responsible, democratic citizen). Digital transformation in its effects relates to vast aspects of peoples everyday life in a fast and more and more disturbing ways, thus is also is a force generating unconsciousness and needs to be reasoned about. Digital transformation is challenging as well the infrastructures in cities, states, big data/multiple databases, social networks. Digital competence should enable people to approach these challenges.Adult education for Active Citizenship has a crucial role to play as it supports learners to develop competences to engage and participate in society as democratic and confident citizens. However the field of AE has to deal increasingly with an audience/target group which is more and more in a position of exposed to the transformation while not being sufficiently equipped to understand digital transformation in its aspects to democracy, and society. Such to develop digital competence goes far beyond media literacy and critical thinking development but pre-requires also a field of Adult education which itself is confident and able to understand and develop learning concepts that adress the democratic challenges and dimensions relating to digital transformation in its full range. In particular Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education have a potential which tour project DIGIT-AL explores and aims to activate. In cross-sectoral collaboration we deliver two handbooks, an app and policy recommendations. The overall concept behind the project is to understand adult learning as a competency centered learning. Aiming to address the ability of adult learners to act consciously, self-responsible, aligned with their self-defined interests and self-explored needs, along democratic values and in cooperation with other citizens. The project is exploring and presenting approaches, practices and tools 1) how to involve digital competence into adult education. 2) How to support adult learners in understanding digital transformation and co-creating it as digitally competent citizens. 3) Furthermore we focus as well on the digital competence of adult educators. 4) The findings will be fed back to developers of digital competence frameworks and learning, as well as to the policy level. During the project we develop- A handbook on digital transformation as a specific and transversal topic in adult education: this publication explores the horizon of digital transformation and its connection to the practice of Adult learning for democratic citizenship- A handbook for educators: Digital competence: What is it? through what kind of approaches and practices adult learners might gain it and what kind of digital competence adult educators need to develop- Policy Recommendations targeting at premises of competence frameworks, AE policies in Europe related to digital transformation and Adult learning for democratic citizenship. - an App to support Adult educators in their learning settings with concrete and easy adaptable info and concepts for targeting digital transformation in their learning settingsA series of training activities tests and evaluates different concepts for educators to master digital transformation as a topic in their Adult learning settings. These trainings will involve a wider audience from the community of adult education practitioners and offer means to them to adapt suggested approaches and concepts into their educational work.The project itself builds a bridge between AE practitioners in Europe and the world of digitalisation research, digital competence development and digital transformation: it mutually ENGAGES stakeholders and experts from both ""spheres"", CONNECTS existing concepts of digital competence development within the wider horizons of digital transformation and the grassroots sphere of Adult Education, as being the level working with the group of citizens vastly affected by digital transformation. The project EMPOWERS adult educators and the field of adult education providers to better understand the transformative character of digitalisation to democracy and citizenship in all its different and difficult aspects, and supports them to develop adequate means and approaches to work with adult learners in an encouraging and positive way on these topics."