Youth information vs. disinformation: Media under the microscope!

Background In November 2019, the working group met in Luxembourg and found that a common denominator is media literacy education in youth information. Already more than ten years ago, it has been shown that Media and Information Literacy is an important key competence of young adolescents and, accordingly, is also gaining in importance in youth information work from year to year. MIL is the basis for understanding politics and democratic processes, for recognizing and counteracting fake news, for civil courage online, for respect, for (digital) participation at all levels of society, for participation and activism. Youth information has shown that it can make an important contribution to all of this. O With this project, Youth Information has more pieces of that aforementioned bridge to deliver. Tools have been developed that address in a youth-friendly and attractive way topics such as Fake News, Cognitive Perception, Influencers, etc., training has been provided to colleagues in Wallonia, Brussels and Luxembourg, and a handbook has been produced, which will be made available free of charge to colleagues across Europe through the ERYICA network. Objectives The project had objectives on several levels: as described in the previous question, the aim of youth information is always to give young people the means to orient themselves in today's world, to master their lives. One of the missions of youth information is to give young people the tools to achieve this, to show them how to use them. For this, MIL is one of the key skills par excellence. Often not addressed in schools as a cross-cutting theme, often ignored at home, this project has provided youth information workers with material to organize workshops in schools, youth centers, youth groups, etc., to engage in dialogue with young people and to empower them to participate critically, confidently and actively in digital life. Youth informers need to feel empowered, know where to find information and take ownership of workshops they can give themselves quickly. Better training of professionals and other multipliers, such as youth organizations, helps to develop young people's critical thinking skills. Implementation The project had several phases and activities. These differ in part from the activities presented in the application. A detailed explanation of the reasons for this change will be given later when this issue is relevant. One of the main reasons, however, is that during the course of the project, it became apparent that the media literacy needs were different from those envisioned when the application was written. It was important for the project group to address the identified needs through a survey. Activity 1: A survey was conducted at the beginning of the project among colleagues across Europe. The analysis of this survey was directly taken into account in the result of the following steps. Second step: A detailed analysis of this survey revealed that there was indeed a need for continuing education of professionals. The working group then developed a three-day training course for professionals. In September 2022, a three-day training course for professionals was then held in Eupen. A manual was then written based on the contents of this training. Another activity was the development of an e-learning course based on the manual and the training course from septembre. Achievements The project has produced a number of concrete results: a survey on MIL among youth professionals from all over Europe. This led to a training for about 20 youth professionals. Through "Living the Tool" another 30 professionals were reached, who in turn accompany many young people in their daily work with MIL topics and whose task is to create attractive offers on this topic. This means that many youth information workers, educators and teachers were able to deepen their knowledge of media skills and were given concrete tools to organize activities with young people. The exchanges between colleagues during the different events were very enriching for the participants. In addition, a practical workshop manual and an online course is available to all interested parties on the websites of the partners, including Eryica, which reaches more than 1000 youth information workers throughout Europe via its network, making it possible to quickly set up one's own workshops and thus contribute to young people becoming CRACS.