The association “Jaunimo debatai” is committed to the development of debate culture not only in Lithuania but also in Europe. Hence, we foster existing partnerships and participate in projects and events abroad.
We are pleased to report that our association “Jaunimo debatai” has – from April 2022 to February 2024 – successfully completed its second Erasmus+ project, “Debate, not Argue” (DNA). During this two-year experience, we worked closely with partners from five European countries (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Germany) and involved over 20 participants from Lithuania and another 100 from other partner countries. Our common goal was to promote young people’s digital and media literacy through, among other means, the development of physical and virtual learning tools.
“Debate Your Issue” (DYI), funded by the Erasmus+ programme – starting in February 2020 and ending in autumn 2021 – is the first long-term international project carried out independently by our association. We are very proud of the successful implementation of this project – in cooperation with partners from five other European countries (Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Belgium and Serbia) – through a variety of events and activities, with the common aim being the combating the rising Euroscepticism, disinterest in news and the declining involvement of young people in politics. The DYI-project also sought to teach its participants to understand and accept opposite views and to take responsibility for own opinions. Thus, we believe, we contributed to building a strong and respectful European community.
In the autumn of 2017, after 47 European “Goethe”-Instituts had joined into the international project “Freiraum”, our association was invited to become a partner of the institute in Vilnius. The sought to consider how freedom is discussed in different European cities: What are the biggest challenges for freedom? How is freedom perceived by communities in different European regions? What is the image of freedom in the minds of citizens, scientists and artists in each country, and why? An additional tool for broadening the understanding of the diversity of freedom(s) in different parts of the continent was to bring together several countries to plan joint events: Lithuania was invited to analyse the project’s ideas together with a team from Romania.