After a long online time our network was again meeting in a hybrid setting in Brussels. The GA days took place between first and third of June in Maison Chant d’Oiseau (Brussels, BE).
We were exchanging on current developments in advocacy for Active Citizenship Education/Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) in Europe. Members presented projects and aproaches. Demogames is a project creating innovative games with a focus on EDC/HRE and promoting a game-based learning aproach, illustrated by Culture goes Europe. LoveStorm presented an online roleplay countering online hate and the training concept of digital civil courage.
Following the demand for more rights-conscious learning in order to increase the impact and quality of EDC/HRE in many fields and in training of education professionals, we discussed how to move further as a network promoting rights-centered learning. This includes learning about Human Rights and what rights are but plays also a role in many of today’s relevant topics- from Education for Sustainable Development to Global Learning or Learning about Digitalisation – and provided to learners of all ages. A special thanks goes to our members Norwegian Human Rights Academy, Slovak Helsinki Committee and Baltic Human Rights Society.
Terra 1530, a network and NGO from Moldova instigated a debate on the response of EDC/HRE to the Russian aggression and war toward Ukraine and on war and violence in Europe.
Learning ‘the Digital‘. The project DIGIT-AL was presented during an event and book launch by Centro Cooperazione Internazionale Trento (CCI) and Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten (AdB) together with the other partners of the DIGIT-AL project (Jan Tonnissoni Institute, Partners Bulgaria Foundation, Education Development Centre, Rede Inducar). We discussed with representatives of the European Association of Adults (Francesca Operti) and European Commission (Klare Engels-Perenyi) the developments regarding digital competence and digitalisation as a atopic and instrument of education and training.
Entrepreneurship education and active citizenship. Let’s find common ground. This headline guided us an inspiring exchange facilitated by DARE (in the frame of the project Entrecom,p 360) and the new DARE member Bantani Education about the relation between entrepreneurship education and active citizenship education. A proactive attitude toward social challenge, addressing individual and group competences in a holistic way, empowering learners for making a step forward are obviously the commonalities, while the approaches have also their specifics. The new member FACK e. V. was presenting with their own example, how this connection can look in the practice.
During the formal part of our General Assembly we changed our Constitution in order to align it with the new Belgian law. The Board presented by Georg Pirker, Eugeniya Khoroltseva, Moritz Borchardt, Agnese Balode, Ines Carvalho (online) and Rebecca Welge (online) reported on our activities in 2021/22 and gave an outlook on future plans for 2022/23. The GA accepted also the financial report and budget and gave the Board the task to come up with a proposal how to align the regional scope of DARE which is until now described by the borders of the countries of the Council of Europe. While it is still and will be always important for us to be a European network, we feel in the same time responsible for our colleagues and friends in Russia und Belarus.
As new members we were happy to include Slovak Helsinki Committee, FACK e. V., Human Rights Voice Lithuania, and Bantani Education. We welcome also BIEFOR (Bureau international en éducation et formation) and Adrianna Chmielewska as associated members.
The next regular General Assembly will take place in the second quarter of 2023.
