Youth power has organized Erasmus+ training course “Digital tools and online campaigning for active participation in democratic processes” in Berlin, from January 4-14, where participants gathered from 4 partner countries – Germany, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main goal of this activity was to educate youth workers/teachers/educators on what digital tools and digital campaigns for democracy are, how to use them and how to develop local activities for youngsters on the topic of online campaigning.
First day went more in a relaxing way. Participants got to know each other, talked about their expectations from this training and they had the opportunity to learn more about Erasmus+ programme and YouthPass in general. We concluded the day with a “Treasure hunt” game. Participants were tirelessly looking for the clues around Berlin and in the end they all successfully completed their tasks. The main goal of this game was to connect participants and motivate them to work together as a group.
Later on, participants went through aspects of successful online campaign. First they learned about the main structure and the most important parts of each campaign and they saw some examples of the most famous worldwide campaigns. Advocacy and awareness campaigns were one of campaigns that participants had the opportunity to learn more about and later through practical work they created their own.
One of the theme sessions of this training course was “Monitoring and evaluation of the campaign“. Through the “World Cafe” activity, participants learned more about these terms, what they mean and how to do them correctly. Following this workshop, “E-participation and examples from EU” activity was held where participants were part of “City Council” and with the chosen mayor they discussed certain problems, shared their opinions and later they had all chance to vote.
Facilitators provided all important knowledge about digital tools they can use for creating online campaigns and we can say that participants reached their creativity peak with their online campaigns that they made in a short period of time and later presented their work to others.
Last day was dedicated to Erasmus+ projects in general. Through various workshops, participants learned how to write and apply for Erasmus+ project.
This activity is implemented within „Critical thinking and participation as a foundation of democracy in Europe” (CRITIDE) project where Youth Power, together with partner organizations Udruga Ringišpil 8 / Association Carousel 8 and NVO GLAS, is the main facilitator and coordinator for all activities. This project is funded by European Union under Erasmus+ programm.