Description
For different reasons – Brexit, economic crisis, right-wing populist governments – Europe is confronted with a wave of europhobism. For many people European Union is the scapegoat for any difficulty and challenge arising from global trends and has to live with constant reproaches of bureaucracy and inefficiency. Young people tend to be a little more positive, as they profit from the mobility activities offered by EU programmes like Erasmus+ and others, enjoy travelling freely and choosing their preferred country of study or work. But this cannot be taken for granted. MEGA seeks to strengthen young people as potential ambassadors of the European idea by helping them to unmask Europhobic, populist distortions of the image of the European Union. An informal, playful learning offer making use of the motivation power of gamification seeks to foster critical thinking capacities and equip them with the knowledge and skills to counter Europhobic myths with undistorted European realities. The course developed in the framework of the 2-year MEGA project (02/20-01/22, Erasmus+) aims to enable representatives from organisations offering services and training for young to implement the MEGA approach. The course is a blended learning offer which enables youth workers to implement an innovative approach at empowering young people to critically analyse Europhobic distortions of the European Union and to learn to act as “European ambassadors”, i.e. to convincingly spread realistic images of the EU among their peers.
European Dimension
The course was developed by a consortium of six European partners from six countries (Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy and Lithuania) and reflects European practice and experience in terms of informal and gamified learning in youth work.
