Project Description
The '50+30' project refers to the remembrance of 80 passing since the beginning of WW2, The end of WW2 has led to 50 years of authoritarian regimes in many central and eastern European countries, culminating with the democratic revolutions of 1989.
30 years went on since then, and many citizens, especially youth, have a limited understanding of the implications of WW2 on Europe and in building a democratic EU. Also, European youth of less than 30, have never lived under authoritarianism, taking for granted the struggle that their close ascendants have faced. It’s hence, in our duty to pay tribute to those who sacrificed themselves for our well-being, not only through re-education of youth but also through remembrance. The latter is particularly important in acting against the rise of populism, and hate speech, which could generate a climate comparable to the one that has preceded WW2.
Objectives:
1. Raise mass awareness on the key-dates of historical events using retrospective social media posts to commemorate the struggle during WW2 and against authoritarianism (365 posts, daily, for one year) reaching more than 30.000 active users.
2. Vivify the remembrance of the WW2 history and monuments by setting up 10 different memorial walks in 10 countries involving a minimum of 200 participants.
3. Counter the rising populism in Europe by fostering remembrance with innovative digital tools, published as guidelines to target educational institutions.
Local activities
The international activities will be preceded and followed by a number of local activities that the partner organizations will lead in their countries. The main ones are:
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Social media posts that are commemorating the date of an event related to WW2 or the end of communism: 30 to 50 posts
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A remembrance walk in a chosen of the city in the country of the organization (at least 30 pax involved)
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Survey aiming to gather thoughts about WW2 and the democratic revolutions (at least 200 response per country)
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Participation in elaborating the guidelines and at least 1 local informative workshop aiming to disseminate the project outcomes.
RESULTS
European ACTIVITIES
3 European events have been carried out within this project:
Event 1 - Kick-off meeting in Cabris (Nice region, France) from 24 to 25 November 2019 gathering 16 participants, project coordinators representative of the partner organisations.
The event gathered project managers from the following countries: 4 from France, 1 from Spain, 2 from Romania, 1 from Germany, 2 from Italy, 1 from Czech Republic, 1 from Slovakia, 1 from Bulgaria, 1 from Lithuania and 2 from Poland.
The meeting was to finetune our the implementation roadmap at all the project management levels. We also designed a survey, that aims to outline the citizens' differences of remembrance thoughts in the participating countries. The results and findings were presented during the conference.
Event 2 - Online seminar of practitioners in the field of human rights education and remembrance - Asynchronous activities from 2 to 5 November 2021 and roundtable with experts on 9-10 November 2021
The online seminar gathered 75 citizens and human rights' experts from the following countries: 5 from France, 6 from Spain, 42 from Romania, 2 from Germany, 6 from Italy, 3 from Slovakia, 5 from Bulgaria, 2 from Poland, 1 from Lithuania and 3 from Czech Republic.
The seminar’s goal is to build on the findings of a survey conducted in all the partner countries in 2020 and 2021 regarding young peoples’ knowledge on the implications of the WW2 and post-war authoritarian regimes on today’s European democracy.
The Seminar took place between 2nd - 11th of November 2021 and will consist of individual asynchronous tasks (2-5 November) and 4 sessions of video meetings, at the end of which we were able to gather a collection of digital guidelines on remembrance for stakeholders.
Event 3 - Online conference: 10-17 December 2021
The online conference sought to explore how remembrance can be a tool for the revitalization of democracy. In order to do that, we have prepared a week of interesting activities, which started on December 10th, on the occasion of International Human Rights Day.
10-15 December 2021: asynchronous activities, divided into the following 4 guides: 1. Networking 2. Totalitarian regimes 3. Transition to democracy 4. Democracy now. Reflections on the Future of Europe. Euroscepticism and populism
16-17 December 2021: simultaneous workshops
16 December 2021: Timeline of Human Rights.
17 December 2021: Transition to democracy: what are our collective memories about the totalitarian regimes
17 December 2021: live panels with human rights education practitioners and experts on Totalitarian regimes and transition to democracy and then Democracy now. Reflections on the Future of Europe. Euroscepticism and populism.
The online conference gathered 155 citizens and human rights' experts from the following countries: 10 from France, 6 from Spain, 88 from Romania, 3 from Germany, 8 from Italy, 7 from Slovakia, 3 from Czech Republic, 7 from Bulgaria, 12 from Poland, and 11 from Lithuania.