Mind Over Media

The idea of this project came up during the training course in Slovenia. During the open space of this training course we were talking about influence/ power of media in one of the days. Participants of the training course started discussions about how the past has influenced young people’s capacity to tell truth from lie, and how in different countries we have different perspectives on “is media an authority for the people or not?”

Media and Internet – has a profound influence on our views on ourselves and the world around us. While the media offers us many opportunities to learn and be entertained, some media is linked to negative influence on emotional wellbeing. We noticed similarities between attitudes toward media, from participants belonging to the countries of the ex-communist bloc.

In the same time we noticed similarities of attitudes between participants from western european countries. It was very interesting to see the differences and the discussions of these two “blocs”, this is why we thought of this idea for the project. In many countries, youth have access to a greater number of multi-media choices than ever before— both audiovisual media and social media. Information, email and images flow around the world faster and more freely than ever.

Indeed, mass media are making the world smaller, and culture and media are increasingly inextricable, especially for young people. The main aim of this youth exchange (YE) activities is to develop skills of critical thinking and analyzing the information from the media. We plan to do that by using different types of games: debate games, board games, city games, simulation games.

This project will give the participants the possibility to create an intercultural dialogue, by meeting together young people from different participating countries. Discovering the differences, but also the similarities between them, young people will increase their level of tolerance and acceptance of what is new to them. This Youth Exchange will make place for making and strengthen the collaboration between the organizations involved, will create new ideas for projects and, in this way, will improve the quality of youth work and non-formal education. With the help of this project we propose ourselves to develop in young people the ability of getting correct information from media and to reduce the manipulation.

One of the aims of this project is to discuss and analyze the influence of the culture, mentality and the history of their country on the young generation and their capacity of analyzing, reflecting and thinking critically about information from the media, in order to make life decisions.

• To develop skills of analyzing articles from mass-media
• To raise awareness among young people, about the necessity of checking the validity of sources and information
• To increase the confidence of young people to talk loud about their ideas
• To raise confidence to create own blog/vlog/media portal
• To raise the level of tolerance and appreciation for diversity in all its forms: culture, opinions, life choices

Location: Clermont-Ferrand, Frankrijk
Kyriad Clermont-Ferrand-Sud Le Pardieu

Date: 6th – 14th of June 2022

Have these plans gotten you all excited? Register now! All costs, i.e.: travel, training costs, food and hotel accommodation, are reimbursed by the European Union. (Travel costs are reimbursed up to €275,- p.p.)

There are a few requirements to participate:

• Participants must be between 18 and 30 years old.
• You must be proficient in the English language
• You must be living in the Netherlands or be in possession of a Dutch proof of identity.
• You must be in possession of a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
• You must be willing to be filmed during the sessions and workshops of the activities
• And to be a broad-minded person who can work together in a group
• The form below must be completed