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"Social, open-minded and political Europe - review to European elections 2014"
Start date: Oct 1, 2014, End date: Dec 31, 2014 PROJECT  FINISHED 

European elections took place in May 2014 . It was quite unpredictable to say, how the results were going to be. During the past year we have had several discussions with young people and their leaders from our partnerorganisations in Europe about the possible election results. Unfortunately, many people are concerned about the growing power of the extreme nationalist parties in their home country and all over the Europe. (True Finns in Finland, BNP in England, PNV in Basque country, NNP in the Netherlands etc.). However, on the other hand young people, who have participated in our international projects, report that they got interested about European Politics not until they had made their own international experiences and met other young people from Europe. Thus, we feared that the above meantioned nationalist parties would play a major role in the European elections in May, anti-European parties would have a significant growth and that percentages of votes would be rather low. Against this background we - reflected together with young people and compared the European election results to see what happened in the various EU countries. - we wanted to see if the nationalist parties in Europe got stronger and we wanted to consider together what we can do about it - we noticed that skepticism against Europe in general has grown and we wanted to fight against it. - we realized that young people have only little interest towards European politics, and therefore we needed to look for ways to make it more interesting for young people - we wanted to encourage young people to form their own opinion about Europe and to participate in its designing - we wanted to show that Europe is diverse and opens up new and positive possibilities for young people. 50 young people at the age of 16-18 from Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Netherlands and Germany in company of their leaders were working on this project. - Young people in Europe informed other youngsters, about what happened in their country during the European elections and how the results were. - Young people made conclusions together, what the election results mean, especially for young people - Young people considered ideas how to motivate young people to vote - Young people experienced Europe in a positive way and made their own experiences We looked together for strategies against disaffection of voting / apathy of voters We developed ideas and strategies against nationalist parties We encouraged for participation and social commitment We promoted positive development of tolerance and diversity in Europe In different workshops with international membersn namely art, photo/ppt/video, newspaper, public action, music, acrobatic and radiothe youngsters developed products which they presented to each other. After the end of the meeting they could take home these products to show it to their Friends, class mates, parents, in the youth club to gain another multiplying medium. In these workshow the youngsters themselves took responsibility for arrangement and process. The diversity of methods and offers made sure, that different concerns and precognitions could be picked up.

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