Youths Promoting 4 Competences for Democratic

Background In 2015, all EU member states and other countries in the United Nations have adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This policy agenda has inspired the Independent Commission of Sustainable Equality to call action for a radically different Europe in their 2018 (first) Report for Sustainable Equality (2019-2024). The Report also urges for the development and implementation of radical policy action to face several crises that are mutually reinforcing, namely: economic, social, environmental and political. It cautions that the failure of Europe to combat the aforementioned crises "will lead to democratic collapse, either because authoritarian populist and extremist forces will gain decisive power across Europe, or because these economic, social or environmental crises will have reached a destabilising stage for society. ...it is necessary to breed and empower critical voting both at the level of national EU member states and at the European level. This need becomes even more imperative if we take into consideration that populists on the back of disinformation try to impose their detrimental agendas across Europe. At the same time the Eurobarometer surveys indicate that the interest shown by 15 to 24-year-olds in the European elections remains significantly lower than that of their elders. Moreover, we should not forget that during the 2014 European elections the biggest level of abstention was among young people, despite of most of them view being part of the Union as positive (more than 70% according to the last Eurobarometer survey). In this scenario Pros4Democracy will equip and empower youths so that they: - acquire competences needed by critical voters to be knowledgeable about what is happening around them through higher media literacy, - become aware of the European values of democracy, social solidarity and sustainable equality through socio-emotional literacy and social justice literacy, - will be active EU citizens ready willing and able to promote European values in their future professional life and - up their skills and confidence in being more eloquent promoters of democratic rights and European values. Pros4Democracy meets: - THE NEEDS AT EUROPEAN LEVEL of more participation in democratic process, the need to counter threats to democratic values especially due to dis/misinformation that exploits insecurities of individuals to foment extreme right agendas is not only a European issue but also a collective need of each member state to do its part, - THE NEEDS OF EVERY MEMBER STATE to reflect European values in its governance, protection of its citizen's right to information that is reliable, true and educational in the area of more critical voting literacy, socio-emotional and social justice literacy so that their respective societies become more inclusive, human centred, democratic and participatory in democratic process, - THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITIES, their schools, civil society, youth