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Camp Democracy 1 - North-East-West-South
Start date: May 2, 2016, End date: May 1, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Camp Democracy project steams from the increasingly volatile EU social and political context. Young people in the EU are confronted with challenges such as high levels of unemployment, social exclusion, lack of political and civic involvement as well as high levels of immigration and xenophobia, which put a strain on democracy, generate frustration and ill-understood social reactions. The objectives of the project are 1) to engage and teach young people from different backgrounds and countries across Europe on current European issues and values, 2) to involve young people in policy-building and decision-making processes regarding highly important topics such as migration, political participation, democracy, economic and social integration.We are going to organize 2 exchange seminars with participants recruited from each of the countries of the partner organizations. We aim to elect 6 participants from each partner country, in total 24, based on a transparent selection criteria deployed at national level and evaluated by all partners in the project. The participants are young nationals aged between 18-27 years old, interested in civic engagement and policy making, with some experience in getting involved in social issues but with interest to learn more about these topics and how they can bring more contribution to the way society views the EU and its policies regarding integration, activism, skills and job opportunities.The exchange seminars are meant to expose the participants to a common agenda of issues to be debated and learned about (xenophobia, lack of political participation, lack of citizen engagement on EU issues, EU democracy and rule of law, migration and social and economic integration), while getting input from specific backgrounds, briefings, challenges and ideas from each country involved in the project.The exchange seminars will be organized in Rhodes, Greece, and in the county of Gävleborg in Sweden. Greece and Sweden have been chosen for this project as their societies are confronted with similar social and economic issues but very different situation in each country which are addressed and perceived in different ways by its youth.The exchange seminars will consist of lectures by politicians, civil society experts, youth activists, democracy NGOs and institutional communication specialists from the country where the meetings are arranged. The purpose of these is to expose the participants to local issues, challenges as well as to ensure knowledge sharing about solutions, ideas and opportunities in the topics of the project.The seminars will also include activities such as interviews with local politicians and NGOs, training sessions on social media communication, political PR and policy building and analysis. Other types of activities will include team-building and study visits to local schools, NGOs and other relevant institutions (private, public or non-profit).This project will impact a diverse range of stakeholders, such as the organizer and partner organizations, the primary target group of the project (participants in the seminars) as well as secondary target groups (politicians, media outlets, decision-taking public institutions, NGOs), as follows:The participants will be enabled to engage more in social and political activism due to increased knowledge and understanding of the decision-making process, the key issues in the EU and their impact on society. They will also be exposed to latest social media channels and digital tools which support democratic engagement and political participation and will be able to apply and deploy activities in their community using these tools to raise awareness on European and national issues related to migration, xenophobia, political activism, economic integration and initiate community led projects in these regards. The participants will also benefit from being exposed to different perspectives of the same issues across Europe and how other societies have found a way (or not) to deal with these. The participants will remain in an international youth exchange network, being able to collaborate (due to digital tools) in setting up large scale projects. Also, the participants will gain new skills through attending the seminars (digital skills, communication skills, media work, policy making, debate, confidence building, public speaking etc) which will support their integration in the labor market.
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