Proyecto Europeo » Daoud Safaa

Summary of the project Active Citizenship in Europe – ACE

Daoud Safaa — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 14:06:51 +0000

This is a summary of the Learning Partnership “Active Citizenship in Europe – ACE” supported by the European Commission.

The main aim of the project “Active Citizenship in Europe” (ACE) was to raise and improve the
level of awareness among adults of their rights as EU citizens and encourage them to exercise those
rights. This aim has been achieved through the intensive discussions at the four partner meetings
over the past two years and the methods developed in between the meetings and implemented at the
meetings. Developing and exchanging methods, workshops and different ways to approach the issue
of European Citizen Right in the four countries was a very successful way to activating different
target groups to engage more for that topic.
The four partner organizations of the project have developed several methods for this aim. One was
a survey designed by IFAID (Institut de Formation et d’Appui aux Initiatives de Development)
Aquitaine which was implemented by all of the partners to be able to assess the knowledge of EU
citizens’ rights and raise awareness of the issue. The online survey was completed in three different
languages (English, Spanish and French) at a European level, reaching the partners’ staff, their adult
learners, ex-pats and other people interested in the topic. The survey got 200 responses in total. It
did not only evaluate the level of knowledge but it also gave information about the rights of
European citizens. The survey was piloted and improved through the feedback obtained from the
participants. In the end, a technical paper was produced based on the results of the survey.
The other project partners conducted various activities to share information on the rights of EU
citizens within the framework of their organizations’ aims and objectives. The Centro del
Profesorado Bollullos-Valverde (CEP), as a teacher training centre, produced and implemented
an online course for teachers which delivers many resources to work on EU citizen rights. A
considerably high number of teachers participated and completed the 20 hours course which was
running for several weeks. Many of these learners went on to use the course in their own teaching
and learned to embed the EU citizenship in their courses/trainings. In addition, Dissens – Institute
for Education and Research re-produced two workshops whose aim was to bring the dimension of
values that work behind discrimination and how to combat these on the side of laws. Apart from
conducting the survey, IFAID embedded the European citizenship dimension in their English
language courses they offer in their institution. Furthermore Stichting voor Educatie -, Cultuuren
Migratie Onderzoek – SECMO organised four workshops at a vocational school in Eindhoven.
The vocational school, Summa College had a European day with the theme of “Borderless”.
SECMO was invited by the Summa College for a session to inform young adults about EU citizens’
rights. During the workshop, practical information was provided through a PowerPoint presentation
in addition to an informative and fun game about the rights of EU citizens. The workshops were
evaluated as very successful and beneficial by the students and teachers who took part in the
sessions.
All these outcomes have been tested during the partner meeting and the reflections of these testings
have been integrated into the final work on the products. This form of European cooperation
contributed to a nice way of making visible different perspectives on the same issue even if the final
version of the outcome was tailor made for the regional context.

The on-line Teacher Training Course “ CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION” by CEP Bollullos-Valverde

Daoud Safaa — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 13:57:46 +0000

CEP Bollullos-Valverde created and implemented an on-line Teacher Training Course called “CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION”. The main objective of the course was to “Disseminate the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the E.U. among students and teachers”. It was a successful course with a good amount of students (teachers) finishing the course. One of the comments from the teachers was: “The best thing has been getting to know a lot of things about the European Union and our rights as European citizens.”
Please find in the PDF file here, which is downloadable, a short presentation of the objectives and outcomes of the course.
Presentation of the online course “CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION”

Last meeting of the ACE partnership in Berlin

Daoud Safaa — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 13:48:10 +0000

The last meeting of the ACE partnership took place in Berlin between the 19th and 21st of June, 2015. We started the meeting with CEP presenting the outcomes of the online course and we were all glad to hear that it was such a success. Also, SECMO performed their workshop “I love EU” which was a quiz on EU-rights. This brought out lots of laughter and excitement as it involved a toy bomb that would explode if the participants took too long in replying the questions. After discussing the outcomes of the projects and evaluating the results from it we went on a cultural visit where the participants got to learn a bit about the history ofBerlin. We all enjoyed each others company in this last meeting and it felt strange to say goodbye after two years of working together, but as we had become friends during the project we were sure to meet each other again. Hopefully we would find a way to work together again in the future.

As Real Life – Sexual and Gender Diversity in Europe

Daoud Safaa — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 09:03:02 +0000

We performed the workshop As Real Life – Sexual and Gender Diversity in Europe in the group in our ACE-project meeting in Bordeaux. The aims of the workshop were firstly to introduce a dominance sensible approach in education on the issue of sexual and gender diversity, secondly to inform about the fact of sexual and gender diversity, and thirdly to develop first steps to empower groups of sexual and gender minorities. We prepared the workshop to deal with the question of European Union Rights from the perspective of values and norms, rather than actual rights. Sometimes living in a country with rights doesn’t guarantee that these rights apply to you. Some people also have some rights but not other. In our educational work Dissens – Institute for Education and Research try to look at the norms and values in our (different) societies in order to understand in what way people can be discriminated against, even if the rights are there, not only when the rights are lacking, and how to invent individual and political strategies to fight for the same rights for everyone on all levels.

Please use and don’t hesitate to spread the manual here: As Real Life – Sexual and Gender Diversity in Europe – Manual from Dissens e.V.

Bingo! An ice breaker exercise with reflective questions

Daoud Safaa — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 08:50:18 +0000

From Dissens – Institute for Education and Research we prepared a workshop for the ACE partnership
where we tried to combine an ice breaker exercise with reflective questions of non-normative
approach. We performed the workshop „Bingo!“ in the first session of the meeting in Bordeaux. The aim of the workshop is to get to know each other slowly in a non-formal matter and to learn each others’ names by mixing humor and neutral topics with sensitive topics. In this way we personlise the topics of discrimination to make the discussions reflective. The aim of this workshop in the context of the ACEproject were a) to introduce non-formal education approaches and methods and b) to bring out the relevance of discrimination in the field of Active Citizen Rights in Europe.

Please feel free to use and spread the manual of the workshop: Bingo manual from Dissens e.V.