Call Erasmus+ Training Course a Durazzo, Albania – 04/04 – 12/04 – 2022

Pursuing the goals of the Erasmus + Key Action 2 Capacity Building in the Field of Youth program, we want to focus on increasing the capacity of young people to critically assess, analyze and interpret media, thus strengthening their resilience to identify and withstand fake news, populist agenda and hate speech.

Nowadays, we are facing an over-saturated media landscape, when on a daily basis we are bombarded with an overwhelming and ever-increasing amount of information, ideas and opinions.

Young people are “digital natives”, yet they often lack the basic awareness and skills that would enable them to be responsible “digital citizens”. Our research shows that in the countries of this Partnership, young people spend on average 3.8-5hours online per day, which is comparable to the hours that they spend in school / university. Alarmingly, the Council of Europe data proves that across its 47 member states, every fourth young person has been at least once targeted by hate speech online, and every fifth has at least once acted as a perpetrator. Poor socio-economic situation and a lack of perspectives for young people, intertwined with a lack of exposure to cultural diversity create a fruitful environment for the spreading of populist messages, when ethnic/cultural/religious and other differences are used to manipulate and mobilize the majority.

Media literacy skills have become a demand of time and an essential element of any initiative aiming at empowering youth to become active and responsible citizens and agents of positive change. Furthermore, media literacy and critical thinking skills are central to any inquiry-based learning process.

Keeping that in mind, our project aims at capitalizing on the best practices in the area of media literacy across the countries of the Partnership in order to:

– strengthen media literacy skills of young people and equip them with specific knowledge and tools how to identify, deconstruct and prevent fake news, populistic messaging and hate speech;

– prepare a new cohort of peer educators on media literacy and critical thinking, which will be further supported by the Partnership;

– consolidate existing good practices and media literacy tools across the Partnership into a project toolkit, which will be available online to a broader audience;

– empower young people to act as agents of positive change in their communities.

During the Training of Youth Trainers on Media Literacy: Tools and Methods participants will work in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment, which is particularly important in case of the Balkan youth, who are normally facing the dividing post-conflict narratives on a daily basis. By this activity, in addition to equipping the participants with professional methods and tools, we aim at fostering inter-ethnic cooperation and promoting a positive narrative in the region by involving youth to address the matter of shared concern.