The importance of democracy education is more urgent than ever. The growing popularity of right-wing extremist and populist parties in many European countries, along with rising xenophobia, racism, and hate speech, must be addressed. Citizens seem to have forgotten about past totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, and young people who have no lived experience of that period or the transition to democracy are even more vulnerable to supporting anti-democratic movements. There is a gap between remembering the past, understanding the present, and shaping our future.

Therefore, several NGOs and schools decided to organize the project “Building Democratic Europe Together.” We carried out various activities to address the situation described above, which will be described in this article. Teachers and youth workers can use the project outcomes in their lessons or be inspired by the wide range of activities and methods that we applied.

The project aimed to provide young people without direct memories of that era with the space to become aware of life under dictatorship. It focused on civic participation in the last decade of totalitarian regimes in several European countries, targeting country-specific topics: Slovakia and Germany— the role of democratic movements supported by the Catholic and Lutheran Churches; Hungary— the struggle for free speech and samizdat; Poland— the Solidarity Trade Union; and Greece— strikes and mass demonstrations at universities.

We used modern and innovative methods to raise awareness of the past and promote democracy, while also encouraging young people to move from passive remembrance to active participation in maintaining and fostering democratic achievements. The most important outputs of the project are video interviews with former activists who were involved in social movements to fight for democracy. Young people themselves carried out the interviews, production, and editing of the videos. All videos are available at this link: https://budet.poli.hu/category/outcomes/video-interviews/

We also organized several events, workshops, and activities in multiple countries while using different non-formal education methods. Besides short presentations introducing the historical background, we carried out:

  • discussions with former activists and victims who shared their stories and experiences with young people who have no memories of that time;
  • study visits to museums and other institutions such as the Museum of Democratic Resistance against Dictatorship, Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße Dresden, Memento Park, Solidarity Muzeum, Slovak Cultural Institute, and others;
  • interactive city tours around places that were important during those periods, where key events or meetings of activists took place;
  • a photo exhibition featuring the most important events of the related history;
  • a contest of posters made by young participants on the project’s topics;
  • screenings of documentary films, e.g., “Oktoberfilm,” “The Legends of Paul and Paula,” “Black Box Studio,” and others;
  • public events and roundtable discussions with former civil activists;
  • interactive and creative workshops using arts and crafts.

We also conducted a survey among the older generation to learn their views on life during this period—for example, whether they could travel, which products were difficult to obtain, whether they had access to goods from Western Europe, whether the transition to democracy fulfilled their hopes and expectations, and many other questions.

More information about the project, all outcomes, and the full report from the survey can be found on this website: https://budet.poli.hu/ The project was supported by the Europe for Citizens programme.

Text: Mgr. Lenka Čurillová Photo: ADEL Slovakia and other partner organizations of the BUDET project