SP - Enhancing young people's media literacy for civic engagement

Background The Media Civic Engagers project addressed the needs of promoting democratic values, increasing youth civic engagement, enhancing media literacy, recognizing and validating youth work, developing cross-sectoral collaborations, and providing training and resources. By empowering youth workers and promoting transnational collaboration, the project aimed to strengthen democracy, counter manipulation and disinformation, and promote active citizenship. It sought to develop research-based knowledge, training curricula, open-access guides, toolkits, and an educational platform to support youth workers in fostering media and civic skills among young people. Through these efforts, the project aimed to broaden and deepen young people's political, civic, and social participation at various levels. Objectives The Media Civic Engagers project aimed to bring valuable results for partner organizations, youth workers, young people, and other stakeholders interested in media literacy and civic engagement. The project aimed to develop training curricula, guides, innovative educational tools, and an educational platform to enhance media and information literacy competencies and civic engagement among young people, as well as to develop research. It has offered transnational and local workshops for youth workers and young people, reaching at least 125 youth workers and 100 young people. In accordance with the UNESCO MIL framework we aimed at empowering young people as content creators and civic engagers, providing youth workers with knowledge and skills to support young people in media projects and civic activities. The project aimed to build capacity and promote cross-sectoral cooperation among youth organizations, with the goal of fostering critical thinking and media literacy to strengthen democracy and counter manipulation. Ultimately, the project goal was to enable young people to become active and influential civic participants. Implementation The Media Civic Engagers project implemented various activities to achieve its goals. These included conducting research, developing training materials, and creating resources for youth organizations. Research reports and scientific articles were produced on young people's civic engagement and media participation. A training curriculum on media education and production tools was developed, along with a guide for supporting young people in their media projects. A training toolkit and an educational platform were created to enhance the skills and knowledge of youth workers and provide interactive resources for young people. Transnational and local workshops trained youth workers and engaged young people in media education and civic engagement. The project focused on developing media and information literacy competencies, fostering civic engagement, and strengthening democracy. Achievements An online platform for young people (16-24 years old) to showcase their new media contents and youth workers for accessing practical educational media materials for promoting youth civic engagement (o5), a training toolkit for youth workers to enhance the media & information skills workshops they provide to young people (O4), a guide to support youth organizations to develop creative and inclusive media projects for young people (o3), a training curriculum to be used by youth organizations to train their youth workers on media skills for civic engagement, and research on the national situation concerning media literacy among youth in the three countries as well as the potentialities of our other outputs (O5)