Design your Job 4
Creative Europe – ECHO
Europe 4 All
Project "Europe 4 All," financed by the Europe for Citizens program, will take place from October 1, 2018, until March 1, 2020. This project included five partners with good past cooperation from different countries, such as North Macedonia, Italy, Albania, Malta, and Germany. The aim of the project is to give European citizens the opportunity to be protagonists in the creation of a more committed Europe through the mutual work of people from different cultures and social contexts on themes of great interest to civil society, the EU, and institutions. All partners need to promote EU values and the benefit of the EU, observe the election processes in the partner countries and the EU in general, research what the problems are for having low voting turnout in the past years and propose solutions to the problems, engage youngsters from the partner organizations to become active citizens, promote volunteering and active citizenship, deepen their knowledge of the EU institutions and policies, deepen their knowledge of the democratic processes, and motivate them to develop a stronger feeling of being European citizens.
The project requires six events, the first of which is "Kick Off," which will be implemented in Tirana, Albania. The second one is "VOLUNTARY ACTIVITY'' which should be implemented in each partner country, the third one is "RESEARCH" which should make it in each partner country, the fourth one is "STUDY VISIT" which should be organized in Palermo Italy, fifth one is "PANEL DISCUSSION" in Valetta, Malta and sixth one as "Final conference" will be in Bitola, North Macedonia.
Each event is planned to have 25–50 participants directly involved and 300 indirectly involved.
This project will have a great impact, not only on the participants who are directly involved but also on the stakeholders.
Europe 4 All Kick Off Meeting, December 17–19, Tirana, Albania
SFERA Macedonia is the lead organization for the project "Europe 4 All," which is financed by the program Europe for citizens of the European Union. Together with the partner organizations: CROSS CULTURE INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION CCIF, Centro di Studi ed Iniziative Culturali "Pio La Torre" ONLUS, Kontakte für Europa e.V., PERTEJ BARRIERAVE, and H.R.Y.O HUMAN RIGHTS YOUTH ORGANIZATION we successfully implemented the Kick-Off Meeting for the project from 17-19th December in Tirana, Albania. During the meeting, we discussed the upcoming activities for the project and all the partner’s responsibilities for a successful implementation of the whole project.
This project aims to allow European citizens to be protagonists in the creation of a more committed Europe through the mutual work of people from different cultures and social contexts on themes of great interest to civil society, the EU, and its institutions.
The main objectives of the project "Europe 4 All" are to promote EU values and the benefits of the EU; observe the election processes in the partner countries and the EU in general; research what the problems are for having low voting turnout in the past years; and propose solutions to the problems; engage youngsters from the partner organizations to become active citizens; promote volunteering and active citizenship; deepen the knowledge of youth about the EU institutions and policies; understand the democratic processes; and motivate them to develop a stronger feeling of being a European Citizen.
Project duration: October 1, 2018–March 1, 2020
Countries involved: North Macedonia, Malta, Italy, Germany, and Albania.
Voluntary activity Eu4all
As part of the voluntary activity for the project "Europe 4 All," SFERA Macedonia has six volunteers engaged to do 100 volunteer hours in a time frame of seven months.
In the first month of their voluntary activity, they organized workshops on the topics of the history of the EU and EU values, the benefits of being in the EU, current trends and challenges, and debates on the pros and cons of the EU. After the workshops, the volunteers shared a survey among the students, which covered the following topics: What is the stand of the young people in North Macedonia regarding the EU, and do they want their country to enter the EU or not?
The workshops took place in four different schools: one primary school ("Dr. Trifun Panovski") and three different high schools ("Josip Broz Tito", "Jane Sandanski" and "Taki Daskalo").
In each of the workshops, there were around 30 students present, between the ages of 15 and 18.
The volunteers are really excited to be part of this project and are looking forward to the next workshops that are part of their voluntary activity. They are giving positive feedback to SFERA Macedonia, saying that during the preparation of these workshops, they gained a lot of knowledge about the topics they were presenting and skills in organizing and leading a workshop.
We are looking forward to their next activities!
EU4ALL Study Visit in Palermo, Italy
SFERA Macedonia, together with CCIF, Centro di Studi ed Iniziative Culturali "Pio La Torre" ONLUS, Kontakte für Europa e.V., and Beyond the Barriers, a Human Rights Youth Organization, were in Palermo, Sicily, from June 1–5, 2019 doing a Study Visit for the project EU4ALL.
The Study Visit started in STATO BRADO with presentations from each country’s NGOs and the election turnouts (statistics) of their countries. We had a discussion about how and what to change about that. Then we visited an NGO working on EU and democracy topics and had a presentation about EU enlargement and the future of the EU. Also, we had a workshop about human rights at the HYRO offices.
We had an organized visit to the Sicilian Parliament where we had a roundtable discussion with the guest speakers: Giuseppe Verde, constitutional law professor at the University of Palermo; Vito Lucio Lo Monaco, the president of Centro di Studi ed Iniziative Culturali "Pio La Torre"; and Valeria Lo Verde, member of the Office of the Antimafia Commission of Palermo, about Sicilian democratic history, law, the influence of the mafia, and the political life in Sicily in the present. While in Palermo, we visited the Centro di Studi ed Iniziative Culturali Pio La Torre offices, where we were welcomed by their president, Vito Lucio Lo Monaco, who spoke about the history of the organization and its main activities. We also had a guest speaker from the student alliance who spoke about students, their rights, student organizations, and their interest in civic society.