HEUROPE – Historical European Union Rememberance nOnformal Public Engagement,
Period of implementation 01.01.2021- 30.06.2022
The HEUROPE project aims to raise awareness about turning points in history regarding human rights using non formal methodologies, stimulating citizen involvement and debate at EU level.
The project involved partners from 7 countries and was coordinated by Dominou Association, from Romania. The main activities were one conference in Lisbon, a volunteering activity in all 7 participating countries and a final conference in Craiova, Romania. Both the conferences and the volunteer activity made the subject of remembrance in the context of human rights accessible to citizens, contributing to their emotion and memory.
The involvement of disadvantaged groups and young people in commemoration activities and the development of equality policy recommendations increased their impact and motivated citizens in various EU countries to promote respect for human rights.
The project involved both citizens and professionals in presenting developments in the field of human rights and contributing to new policies targeting disadvantaged citizens. The project built on the partners’ experience in education and inclusion, promoting volunteering as a citizen’s way of European ownership.
Heurope project was funded by the European Comission through the programme Europe for citizens (reference number 618054-CITIZ-1-2020-1-RO-CITIZ-REMEM).
Conference in Portugal
The first conference, in Portugal, 24-25 August 2021, presented the connections between shared history, as the Holocaust , contemporary forms of slavery, genocide, wars, etc; human rights developments, activism and the daily lives of EU citizens.
Was discussed all types of local stakeholders, how they can organize commemorative events with major impact, using cultural and non-formal events, about the future in digital human rights: vision, challenges, possible solutions and about the implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, rights in the partner countries – presentations, videos, graphic facilitation images shared online.
The conference had a section on the common understanding of the project implementation by all partners, the project work plan and the GANTT diagram, the repertoire of EU policies and instruments popularized by the project, prepared for the purpose of dissemination, project models, correct financial management of the project and activity projects for the voluntary activities of all countries.
Was also discussed the transfer of methods successfully used to promote human rights awareness, how can we promote European memory for citizens, especially the younger generation. About the transfer of Council of Europe tools to educate young people and citizens about human rights and about the structure of the “Human rights simplified” portal.
ESC international volunteering activity
The international volunteer activity carried out in 7 European countries, which brought together a number of 30 volunteers. They promoted volunteerism, human rights and citizen involvement.
They had the following objectives:
– activating minorities social and cultural resources, enhancing culture and values sharing;
– improve public opinion and policies on equality for disadvantaged groups;
– identifying inequalities and “forgotten” events that are representative for human rights struggles;
– equipping volunteers and partner NGOs with tools and competences in organising remembrance cultural and social events in connection with human rights;
-research data to show awareness of the citizens in regard to important policies and documents on human righst;
-online and offline debate on European values, heritage intercultural dialogue
– culture of active citizenship and volunteering
Their results were visible through testimonial video, podcasts, youtube channel with weekly feed from all participating countries about historical turning points for human rights, songs about european rememberance and articles on the blog, funny SMS messages/pictures rising awareness on human rights.
Conference in Romania
In the final conference, held in Craiova, Romania, more than 200 citizens participated to celebrate the volunteers’ involvement and learn about how they can get involved in civil society and promote human rights. The remembrance activities held by the international partners came as a crowning of the work carried out in the project.
We discussed about how can we increase contact between authorities and citizens, about knowledge on new policy developments in the last year from a human rights perspective, about the Europe Direct Network, the support and resources it offers, about the tools that we can use for citizens involvement and how can we increase project impact and visibility.
The participants from the conference learned about the relevant actors in policymaking, in intercultural dialogue and their contributions, good practices in how to teach multi-perspective to young citizens, policies on how to reduce human rights differences between majorities and minorities, convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities challenges and how to identifying challenges in remembrance and human rights funding applications.
Erasmus+ International Courses - Dominou 