The results of the ‘Diagnoza społeczna’ study indicate that even though 85% young people in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie province are interested in public affairs, the vast majority of them do not engage in them at all. At the same time, our research shows that only 10% are active at NGOs or do volunteer work. Their low involvement results first of all from insufficient soft skills, mostly communication, the lack of the sense of agency and local identity, as well as the lack of leadership qualities with the motivation to mobiles others.
We will address this problem by increasing civic engagement and knowledge about democracy among 100 young individuals from grades 4-8 of primary schools in our province. We will run competitions and organise street games giving participants an opportunity to discover their neighbourhood in the context of social activity venues. We will organise workshops on democracy and processes taking place in democratic countries. We will organise meetings with representatives of our partner – Capital Youth Association – an organisation of Liechtenstein that will share with us practices of work with youths in their country. The partner will ensure participation of young people from other EU countries which will create an opportunity for talking about civic engagement and democracy across Europe.
Our second partner – Polskie Telewizje Lokalne i Regionalne association – will support us in promoting the project and in running debates for youths, with particular focus on recoding and broadcasting.