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Description
Lack of youth involvement and information of young people in rural areas has devastating effects on a long term. Lack of nonformal education programs, education for democracy, civic culture, volunteering, education for sustainability and human rights in schools in rural areas increase the voter turnout, non-participation of youth and adults in the community life and a certain level of civic anesthesia in rural communities. In the context of this project, the Association for Community Support and Humanitarian Assistance together with the Romanian Youth Council, chose 4 technological high schools from 4 villages in Suceava County, Botosani County, Tulcea County and Ilfov Region to deliver expertise in the fields of active citizenship, civic education, local advocacy, human rights and environmental protection, uniting youth communities to be involved in local public decisions and volunteering activities. The project aims at training and informing a total of 2.385 pupils and students with ages between 12-21 from rural areas from technological high schools and professional schools and 250 teachers about the democratic culture, human rights, sustainability. It also aims at youth coalition in all 4 communities for creating 4 consultative structures like the youth consultative structures under the city halls of villages and communes, participation at consultation meetings and empowerment of youth councils of the 4 high schools for local advocacy processes on youth matters and community involvement. Also, there will be 4 awareness campaigns for 5.000 adults in the villages proposed in the project, regarding basic civic education with the help of students involved in prior trainings with the main objective of raising public participation in the community. The project will consolidate the organization by diversifying the incomes and improving the internal procedures.
Summary of project results
The project addressed the lack of youth (aged 12-21 years old) involvement and informing from 4 rural areas from Romania. Lack of nonformal education programs, education for democracy programs, civic education, volunteering, education for sustainability and for human rights in schools in rural areas produces a falling in numbers at youth disengagement in the community life.
Schools of Our Villages – Education for Active Citizenship and Human Rights project was implemented from April 2021 to May 2022 in 4 counties in Romania. A total of 2.541 of highschool students with ages between 12-21 from rural areas and 322 teachers participated in trainings about the democratic and civic education, human rights and sustainability & environmental protection. From the same highschools, a total of 81 students participated in a training and learned basic notions in advocacy, how local public institutions work, how decisions are made, institutional transparency and how to make their voice heard. They also created with the help of the project promoter 4 advisory councils on youth issues and participated in a world-café event with local decision-makers. An awareness campaign was conducted by some of the students and teachers that participated in the trainings. They handed out flyers and talked to adults from their community about their rights and responsibilities as citizens, active participation and how they can help each other.
A total of 2541 of students and 322 teachers from 5 high schools from 4 counties in Romania were informed about important matters such as democratic and civic education, human rights, and sustainability & environmental protection. 81 students learned about and how to do advocacy and increased their confidence to express their opinion. They also interacted and discussed with local decision-makers such as representatives of the City Hall, Local Council, Prefecture, Police, and high school principals about 5 topics that they chose. The 5 issues identified and debated with the local authorities were: increasing the employability of young people, the need for information on topics related to sex education, combating hate speech and bullying in schools, setting up local youth centers and taking measures for collective selective waste. As an outcome 4 informal groups of students were created in the 4 communities, as a structure for representing the voice of young people in the community. The informal groups conducted an awareness campaign in which 5000 adults were informed about democratic culture and basic civic education. The donors and the project benefitted from a great visibility. They reached 65.528 people in social media(Facebook, Instagram and Twitter), issued 3 press releases retrieved by 7 newspapers, and made 10 radio reports with a reach of over 12000 people.