The FCV receives the support of the European Comission’s Erasmus+ program to coordinate a strategic partnership project in the field of youth, called “Mainstreaming Media Literacy and Thinking Competences in Youth Work”
The project is a 22-month initiative, organized by the FCV and four other non-profit and non-governmental youth organizations with which the FCV has been collaborating for years. The organizations, from Greece, Portugal, Italy and Hungary, have outstanding careers in working with young people on an international scale and in the development of educational actions using unregulated methodology.
Its goal is mainly to popularize two skills we believe to be very relevant: the ability to think, and media literacy. Thinking is an essential action in any learning process, as well as reflecting and feedback; furthermore, we consider that encouraging critical thinking and publicizing the benefits of the different techniques of thinking (logical, systemic, lateral, positive/negative) is imperative.
This ability is related to another one, equally necessary in our societies: the ability of Reading and interpreting messages, images and narratives of the media and the social networks, as well as learning to act against lies and false news, and against the large number of narratives based on confrontation, hatred and discrimination.
The value of this set of skills is evident, as well as its connection to fundamental rights such as receiving truthful information, freedom of opinion and speech, participation in public affairs, etc.. However, the truth is that there are hardly any educational tolos that focus on these competencies and that help youth workers and young people become responsable for the messages they send, transmit, and receive.
Since, to us, creating new educational tools seems key in order to move towards more democratic and respectful societies, we will gather practices, experiences and knowledge to create a manual that serves as a guide to organize new educational activities (social and cultural) to help spread and develop the skills previously discussed.
This manual, aimed at youth workers, educators, trainers and teachers, will be published in seven languages (English, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish and Catalan) before the end of the project, in Autumn 2022.
For more information on the initiative, do not hesitate to contact us at projects@catalunyavoluntaria.act