Debate, not Argue

When we came up with the idea of the project with our partners, we decided to address the following needs that we strongly perceived in our work: • Media and information literacy deficit: the ubiquitous presence of fake news, disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, manipulation and demagogy in today’s media and the lack of skills of information consumers to verify their sources, to debunk misinformation or to fight disinformation. • The COVID-19 pandemic: forcing physical education to move into the digital realm created unforeseen challenges caused by the overuse of digital, virtual and augmented methods. This crisis clearly showed the need for designing innovative blended methods of working with the youth. • Inadequate capacity of the Consortium for hybrid working practices with the youth which take the best from both physical and digital methods while eliminating their drawbacks. • Disenchantment of the youth with political development, their mistrust in democratic processes, erosion of European values and rising perception of the European Union as something “external”. These needs were still relevant in the implementation phase and addressing them brought positive impact.

1) Increase the capacity of the Consortium to implement hybrid methodologies in youth work, enabling us to react to situations like the COVID-19 pandemic and work through times when mobility is limited. 2) Create and field-test practical methodologies to work with youth participants on the topic of fake news, misinformation, disinformation, populism, demagogy, manipulation and hate speech. Create a toolkit out of these methodologies and share it with external stakeholders, youth workers and youth to be used in their direct work with youth and peers. 3) Increase media literacy of our participants and target groups and them about fake news and hate speech. Reach out beyond our Consortium and in other European countries by using the potential of multipliers (active youth interested in current issues, teaching and training). Include disadvantaged youth to reach better equality of non-formal education. 4) Elevate the debate on European values amongst the youth and through their influence in the whole society. Contribute to the European society’s ability to discuss controversial topics in a calm and informed manner, using critical thinking skills instead of argumentation based on emotions, bias or uninformed opinions.

In the project, we implemented the activities that we planned at the application stage, plus online workshops in the online space of Palace of Literates, which were not originally foreseen. We have implemented: • 4 LTT Activities joined by young people from all the project countries: 1) in Novi Sad (Serbia) in November 2022, 2) in Ghent (Belgium) in March 2023, 3) in Krakow (Poland) in May 2023, 4) in Brno (Czech Republic) in September 2023 During these activities, the young people had the chance to explore the project topics in local contexts, meet with experts, discuss their experiences and opinions and work in international groups on creation of educational materials. • 6 online workshops These workshops took place in our online space Palace of Literates, tackling the topics of: disinformation, journalism, new media and podcast creation. The participants (as well as members of the partner organizations and broader public) had the chance to come to the workshops, listen to short lectures from media experts and then work together on given tasks. • 24 spin-off workshops for the local communities – 4 per country, 1 after each of the LTTs Thanks to the spin-off workshops, also other members of the partner organisations and young people in local communities had the chance to try out the materials developed within this project and learn about the topics of the project. At the end of the project, we implemented: • 2 Multiplier Events, which made the project results more visible: 1) "International Youth Fair” in Vilnius in October 2023 2) a two-day conference “Debate not Argue: How to Make it Happen?” in Dresden in November 2023 During the project, the representatives of the partner organisations met 3 times at in person Partner Meetings: 1) Kick-off Meeting in April 2022 in Prague, 2) Mid-Term Meeting in December 2022 in Vilnius, 3) Wrap-Up Meeting in November 2023 in Dresden.

During and in between the project activities described above, we worked on the project results – educational materials available on the website debatenotargue.eu of the project and an interactive online meeting space. We created the educational materials according to the plan, which we set in the project application. There are: • 12 videos • 12 podcast episodes • 6 debate methodologies, forming a comprehensive manual • various educational materials – lesson plans, games, quizzes and guidelines on using energizers and organizing and evaluating in non-formal educational events • an encyclopaedia of analysed fake news articles from different countries, which helps readers to understand the strategies these articles use to manipulate people These materials were created by the project partners together with the project participants – we selected them to be young people interested in education and youth work, so that they would benefit from learning how to create such materials. Once the materials were developed and posted on the website, they were tested by the partners in their regular youth work and by the participants during their 24 local spin-off workshops. This testing helped us to improve these materials and make them more suitable for the needs of young people as well as educators. During the project we promoted the project materials to public, especially to teachers, youth workers and other educators, who may be interested to use them. We did this through social media, various events that we organized and attended, the spin-off workshops and through our personal contacts to other organisations and youth workers. Meeting space – Palace of Literates: Apart for the educational materials, in line with the project application, we also developed an online meeting space, which is in Gather.town and we call it “Palace of Literates”. This space was designed to look like an actual “palace” or rather a university campus, in order to create an atmosphere suitable for learning. There is a big lecture hall, where people can meet for lectures and workshops, with small tables for work in smaller groups. There are smaller workshop rooms and a library, which are suitable for group work. In the garden, each of the project partners has a promo booth with information about their organisation. Within the project, we organized 9 online workshops and various other project-related meetings in the space. The platform remains online also after the project is over and GI has admin rights. Therefore, it will bring a lasting improvement of the virtual activities organised by all partner organisations. We are planning to use the platform for further projects that we organize. All partners learned to work with the space and moderate the meetings there, which improved their capacity to organize such activities in the future. The online space remains accessible through our website debatenotargue.eu and is free to use by anyone, as long as there are up to 10 simultaneous participants.