Description
The Project initiated by the Association "European Centre for Education and Training", actively contributes to the promotion and development of essential skills necessary for creating a sustainable democratic culture. The target group consists of students from 12 high schools from Bacau and young offenders in the evidence of the Probation Service of Court Bacau. The objectives of the project are to inform and promote responsible attitudes to democratic values; improving the transfer and application of theoretical knowledge on the fundamental values and principles of genuine democracy through Forum Theatre; increasing participatory democratic spirit through argumentative Debate; awareness of local communities on specific cases of violation of fundamental human rights through participatory methods: Photo-voice and “Public Café"; raising awareness of 3500 readers by developing a guide to democracy; improving the quality of services offered by the association members through counseling skills acquisition.
Summary of project results
The need for the implementation of the project lies in the fact that the members of the society, and in this case, teenagers in Bacau County, do not realize the major consequences of the poor involvement in the consolidation of democracy, for both their future and the future of the community they belong to. The project activities managed to actively contribute to the promotion and development of political culture specific to democracy, both at individual and group level. This was an essential factor in the development of the democratic values and principles in the beneficiary groups from Bacau high schools, and Bacau penitentiary. Within the project, 13 cooperation project partnerships were concluded, 960 people participated in seminars organised on the issue of the level of democratic culture, 20 volunteers attended the "I want to help" training program; 350 participated in the preparations for the Forum Theatre representations, with almost 700 viewers; 1 manual of operating procedures, instructions and job description for volunteering activities was elaborated; an information guide on democracy, for the youth, has been elaborated and published. This guide has been distributed in the schools that have participated in the project and it reached 3500 readers. Non formal methods of education, such as Photo voice, World Cafés, or Human library were taught to the participants in the 13 training sessions organised within the project and used in the following activities. The closing conference of the project, attended by 30 people, was used as a means of replicating and promoting the activities, and especially the results of the project, the teachers from the partner schools presenting the improvement in the behaviour of the students with regards of appropriate language and attitude towards their fellow students and teachers, as well as a decrease in the discriminatory incidents. The main achievement of this project was that the beneficiaries had the opportunity to participate for the first time in this kind of activities, as the formal school programmes do not include or encourage these non-formal teaching methods used in the project. The students engaged with determination and pleasure in all the activities of the project, thus the results foreseen in the application have successfully been reached and, in many cases, surpassed.
Summary of bilateral results