B-Part & Engage in European Citizenship is a project implemented by the European partners SÊ Association (project promoter, from Portugal) and The Smile of the Child (project partner, from Greece), funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ Program, which aims to promote Active Citizenship, Democracy, Human Rights, Inclusion and European Identity values among students in 3rd to 6th grades. Its final goal is to tackle alienation and contribute for children to grow to be active citizens, who participate in democratic life and to take into their hands the collective problems that need to be addressed. Altogether, it will involve approximately 600 students and 20 teachers. At the end of the project, the outcome will be a Good Practices in Citizenship Education paper and an online free Toolkit for teachers and other educational agents to facilitate communication among groups. You can read the project’s summary on the funds official platform here.

Implementation Stages

   1. Diagnosis (April to June 2022)

Initially, the intention is to understand how Citizenship Education is being delivered, methodology wise. We also intend to listen to teachers and students suggestions for the improvement of the school system.

   2. Co-creation of thematic workshops with the teachers (September to December 2022)

The goal of the intermediate stage of the project is to co-create, alongside each participant teacher, with 3 interactive workshops for his/her class: Emotional Education; Human Rights & Inclusion; Active Citizenship and Democratic Participation.

   3. Co-facilitation of the workshops with the teachers (January to June 2023)

Teachers and project facilitators will, side-by-side, deliver the workshops to the teacher’s class, involving the students in group dynamics that promote their development of key-competences like autonomy, critical and creative thinking, empathy, respect for different views and cooperation to find common solutions.

Methodology

All the project implementation methodology, with either teachers or students, is hands-on and is based on cooperation, dialogue, active involvement of all participants, mutual learning and permanent openness to readjustment.

In what regards the workshops themselves, these will be based on dynamic and participatory methodologies, that put the student in the core of his/her learning process, promoting the development of the above-mentioned key-competences. It regards open learning, not leading the student to a direct answer, but rather allowing different answers to arise. The goal is to promote reflection, human values and to find common solutions. In order to achieve this, we will use, namely, group work, debates, role-playing, forum-theatre and audiovisual tools.