In June, EWC organized and hosted four webinars as well as one major conference via online platforms, gathering dedicated participants from across Europe.
“As the Corona virus spread across the globe and it became clear that all face-to-face activities was going to be postponed for the foreseeable future, we quickly turned to digital solutions and made use of our experience with online learning to continue our work on educating for democracy and human rights” said Lars Gudmundson, Deputy Director and Head of Programming at EWC.
“Practicing Citizenship in the Russian Federation” held its first webinar in the beginning of June. The topic was «the relevance of the value-based approach in the time of the pandemic», and 60 participants learned about the values embedded in citizenship and human rights education.
Next up was “Preparing Future Teachers in the Western Balkans” which hosted a webinar on session planning for university teams participating in the project. Another webinar will take place before the summer break.
Following this came the STEP-UP webinar, an ERASMUS+ project which aims to connect the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture with teacher training and teacher students’ practice in schools. Together with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, EWC cohosted the webinar which addressed project progress as well as made plans for the coming months of development of new training modules.
Lastly, “Schools for Democracy” in Ukraine hosted the national conference as an online event. Traditionally, this has been the time to look back on the academic year that passed, discuss lessons learned and celebrate achievements. Despite the event being moved online, 240 participants followed the event with a high level panel including the acting Minister of Education in Ukraine.
