Youth in Europe - past, present & future
At the heart of the EU are the 28 Member States and their citizens. The unique point is that all these states remain sovereign and independent, but bundle some of their sovereign powers in areas where cooperation is meaningful. This partial transfer of powers to institutions, which the Member States themselves have created, means in practice that decisions on specific issues of common interest can be taken demo-cratically at European level.
(http://publications.europa.eu/webpub/com/eu-what-it-is/en/)
Among the EU's goals include promoting peace, European values and the well-being of its citizens, freedom, security and the rule of law without internal borders, halting social injustice and discrimination, respect for their rich cultural and linguistic diversity. All EU Member States share the values of the EU: they seek a society in which inclusion, tolerance, the rule of law, solidarity and non-discrimination are a matter of course. These values shape our European lifestyle: human dignity, freedom, democracy, gender equality, the rule of law and human rights.
(https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en).
At this point, the intension of the project continues: "How important is Europe for young people?", "What are the expectations of young people to future Europe? "," What demands does future Europe place on young people? ".
The participating schools have formed an international school network for many years, the Committee Europe (https://committee-europe.eu). This alliance is based on the idea of bringing together pupils from as many European countries as possible to engage in mutual cultural exchanges to eliminate prejudice and convey the idea of a European "citizenship". This takes place annually in workshops at various locations on specific topics in the fields of sports, music, art, politics, economics or science. The Erasmus+project focuses on the "European thought", i.e. “What perspectives (cultural, social, economic) does Europe have for young people between the ages of 13 and 16?” It is divided into two phases, i.e. between 2020 and 2021, in parallel workshops with up to 250 pupils, a vision of the "idea of a united Europe" will be discussed or drawn up.
In the first phase (2019-2020), possible historical, cultural, social or economic differences or aspects should be clarified and perspectives should be shown. The pupils should develop an age-appropriate electronic questionnaire, which is carried out at all participating schools (about 5000 pupils) of the respective national language. In the second phase (2021) this questionnaire will be evaluated by the pupils at workshops and the results prepared for a presentation at the participating schools.