THEMES AND ACTIVITIES
Since its establishment in 2013, European Dialogue has been actively organising various types of local and international activities and events (trainings, workshops, summer schools, conferences, debates) and publishing media content (articles, videos, multimedia presentations) reporting on important events of various types. Over time, the organisation has built up a wide network of reliable partners with whom it regularly organises joint projects and initiatives.
The European Dialogue has ensured that, through its activities, it contributes to raising youth’s professional and personal growth, development of quality youth work, and society’s awareness of important European and national issues. It’s focusing on the following topics:
Media and information literacy, critical thinking, reliability and transparency of information
Young people’s creativity in the media, art, and digital content creation
Quality youth work, especially a digital one
Quality media production, trustworthy journalism
Active citizenship and youth advocacy
Human rights and fundamental freedoms
European integration
Connections and collaboration in Slovakia and Europe
Organisational development, innovations
The activities of the organisation are also focused on other topics, such as the environment or sports, as long as they have a media component, e.g. creation of content or empowering participants to better communicate about those topics through or with media. The participants of various backgrounds inspire and learn from each other, for example the experienced share various insights, good practices, and lessons learnt; the beginners bring new ideas and attitudes.
Since 2017, the European Dialogue has been regularly coordinateing all types of Erasmus + projects and sends volunteers within the European Solidarity Corps projects. The organisation coordinates the strategic partnership project called DiGi YOUTH and is a partner of three other ongoing strategic partnerships (Gamefy, EURvoice, Digital MIR lab in youth work). In addition, the ED has experience with several other international initiatives. ED cooperates also regionally- it organized a project called „The Fall School on Media“ within the Visegrad fund in 2019. Currently, the organization is a partner in two Europe for Citizens projects: „50 +30: From WW2 to the end of communism” and „Media for Citizens Story Lab“. The organisation is also a partner of a large centralized project called Media4Change – Future Investigative Story Lab, which was supported by the European program DG CONNECT – Media Freedom and Investigative Journalism.
The organisation regularly cooperates with secondary schools and universities in Slovakia, where it organizes workshops or discussions on various topics related to its expertise and main objectives. Since 2019, the ED has been a regional multiplier of the Slovak Eurodesk network, within which it also develops several local activities and consults European educational mobilities with young people. In addition, ED members mentor several young people and advise them on how to write their own project (especially a youth exchange or an ESC solidarity project).
It’s very important for European Dialogue to go beyond boundaries of one-time activities. Therefore the training activities are accompanied with actions before (e.g. competitions, opportunities to submit various works in advance and receive feedback) and after (mentorship programme) each of them. To facilitate further mutual learning and exchange among participants, European Dialogue regularly establish international working groups that support maintenance of contacts and use of digital tools for communication and collaboration.
In 2020, European Dialogue was registered as a youth organisation by the European Youth Foundation of Council of Europe.
Geographical reach:
The activities of the organisation have local, regional, and also international reach. European Dialogue operates primarily within the Trnava region but also throughout the whole country implementing the activities resulting from its main objectives. The local dimension will be strengthened during 2021, when the European Dialogue will open its office in Trnava.
The participants of individual learning activities subsequently become multipliers, motivated by the ED to spread the acquired knowledge and skills, either through the spoken word, or by organising local workshops or writing their own project, for which they receive guidance from ED staff.