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.
