“E-volve and get involved” Developing media literacy skills to advance youth participation

Szováta, 2011 – April 24, 2012.℘

Civic Engagement Movement has implemented the project including training courses designed around two major topics media literacy and civic engagement with the aim to build capacity and promote active participation. The project  has ended with a Final/Concluding Event that took part in Pécs, Hungary.
“This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This text reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”
The two Training Courses have been implemented at the Outward Bound International Youth Center (link) located in Sovata, Romania, the first training took part between August 30 and September 6, 2011 the second training has been organized in the period of 24-31 March, 2012. The Training courses have been developed and implemented with the aim to build capacity and develop new media literacy skills alongside with the deepening of the active participation and readiness towards involvement within the community issues. The seminars have gathered together approximately 50-55 young people, NGO representatives, volunteers, university students, youth leaders and bloggers, from various countries: Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Romania. The facilitators team was composed of 4 trainers and 2 facilitators. The daily program included 8 hours of work; the themes of the modules were divided into two main categories media literacy and civic engagement. The two main issues were strongly interrelated therefore some of the modules were built up by connecting them into one part. The media literacy has been divided into two major elements: digital literacy and media literacy.
During the first Training the participants have created a facebook account called “E-volve and involve” (can be accessed at the following link: www.facebook.com/#!/pages/E-volve-and-Involve/253831484657358
The official website of the project www.evolveandinvolve.ro includes the thorough description of the whole projects alongside with the blogs and other projects developed and implemented by the trainings participants during and after the training series. The website also contains the media products such as short films and other items that have been developed by the participants during the trainings.
The beginning the training program included team-building activities as well as getting to know each other games and continued with modules implemented by using the elements of non-formal learning, the learning by doing techniques and it has also served a learning environment for peer education and participative learning.  The methods used during the whole project will offer the opportunity to young people to learn skills and methods as well as change attitudes in the field of online active participation as well as community organizing and it will contribute to the creation of a website hosting social media blogs created and written by the Training participants.
You can find more information on the training on the official site of the project. www.evolveandinvolve.ro
CEMO is preparing a booklet containing the best practices of the trainings that is going to be published in the near future.
First Training’s Agenda
Second Training’s Agenda