News Archive

A festival of learning democracy through play – In a world which had yet to learn what Covid-19 was, Marhanets school #3 held the mini-festival “Country of Democracy in Ukraine.

50 trainers, teachers and school directors shared the results of their work since 2019 at the second Academy for Schools for All in Greece online November 8.

The Peace Education Hub at the University of Sarajevo is a partner in the EWC project Preparing Future Teachers in the Western Balkans. In this interview we get to know Prof. Dr. Larisa Kasumagić- Kafedžić and the work she does with her colleagues at the hub.

EWC is launching a new a new training of training course to promote inclusive schools and citizenship education in Slovakia. The training is part of a larger project targeting schools with a high number of Roma students.

EWC will play an important role in developing the educational activities at the new Roma and Sinti Centre in Prague. Planned to open in March 2023, the new centre is part of the Czech strategy for Roma integration and will serve as a meeting place to learn about Roma culture and history.

EWC is happy to congratulate Schools for Democracy Alumni Vasyl Diakiv on winning the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2020. Starting at almost 3000 nominated candidates Vasyl was announced the winner in Kyiv October 3rd, a truly great achievement!

Students and staff at the 1st Gymnasium of Avlona faced Covid-19 as a big family. The biggest challenge when Greek schools closed down in early March was making it possible for the refugee children in the camps to take part in the online courses and feel included and welcome.

Despite the lockdowns and restrictions caused by covid-19, a lot has been happening in the 22 July and democratic citizenship program. “The program is buzzing with activity, and we are excited to be on our way to a “new normal”. Bringing engaged students and youth back to Utøya, developing a new digital democracy learning platform, and arranging a national training course for teachers affected by the terror attacks 22 July 2011, are some of the plans this fall,” says project manager Ingrid Aspelund.

The European Wergeland Centre is a learning centre and in the context of Covid-19 this has become truer than ever. Emerging issues rising from the pandemic gives increased relevance to education for democracy, human rights and intercultural understanding. The centre explores new ways of working with focus on digital learning and new platforms, a process that started before the pandemic, but that has been intensified because of it.

“It is important to strengthen the democratic competences of children and youth, and it is important that we manage to talk and teach about the 22 July terror attacks in a good way to today’s students. I am proud of the work done and believe this contributes to prepare our most important community institution – the school – to do exactly this”, said Guri Melby, Minister of Education of Norway when she officially launched the new learning resources on 22 July last week.

Wanting a more involved school community and recognizing the potential of the student council to become a real representation and co-management body, the Tallin Laaga School and Kindergarten in Estonia participated at the EWC Baltic Regional Summer Academy in 2019. Since then a lot has happened, and they even won the Active Student Council Award 2020, a competition organized by the Department of Education of the city of Tallin.

EWC continues to support the important work being done in the ongoing Ukrainian school-reform with a newly launched project aimed at pre-school education. The project, which is carried out within the Schools for Democracy programme, will support the development of the new pre-school curriculum and build capacity of kindergarten teachers to implement it.

Last year we celebrated EWC trainer Natalia Kidalova as she won the title of Ukraine’s best teacher in the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2019. This year we are happy to see more familiar faces among the top-50 finalists.

Due to national regulations on Covid-19 infection control, The European Wergeland Centre had to postpone all education activities at Utøya island this spring. As Norwegian society is gradually reopening and restrictions are being lifted, we can finally welcome students and teachers at Utøya again.

The Council of Europes’ Reference Framework for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) held a central role when EWC presented experiences from the Schools for Democracy project in Ukraine, and how they have dealt with the challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic, at an international e-conference promoting European ideas in education in early June.

In June, EWC organized and hosted four webinars as well as one major conference via online platforms, gathering dedicated participants from across Europe.

The European Wergeland Centre Secretariat has now a new organizational structure in place.

EWC’s project “Democracy Workshops” will host its first workshops this fall after the government has decided to open up for activities aimed at children and youth in Norway.

Around 240 participants gathered for the online national conference “Schools for Democracy” in Ukraine June 24.