Learn from the past, look to the future

Date/time
Date(s) - 27/06/2022 - 03/07/2022
00:00

Locality
Trnava, Slovakia

Project type

• Slovak projects

Selected participants

More info about the project:

Training course “Learn from the past, look to the future” is part of the “Collective Memories for Democratic Values” CoMEDEVA project which is a cooperation between Europe and Central Asian countries aiming to raise civic awareness and political participation of young people especially in the post-soviet and partner countries but in a broader sense all over the world. To achieve these goals partners used non-formal education methods and learning by doing activities in order to bring social and civic issues and closer to youth by giving them an ‘out of school’ learning experience.

28 years have passed since the breakdown of the Soviet Union which means post-soviet countries became “adults”, furthermore, a new generation grew up outside of the socialist era. Some of the Eastern bloc countries joined the European Union in 2004 and Eastern European and Caucasian countries show rapid development as well. Despite of the improving economy and rising living conditions many young people are exposed to the risk of radicalisation or just turn away from active political participation. Memories of the socialist era are more or less history living with us, surround us. We can easily find socialist buildings, squares, roads, and people who have experiences of the longest standing totalitarian system of the 20th century.

Everyday people and objects keep memories of this age, as well as historical institutes and museums. Nevertheless, professional cultural institutions face the challenge of raising youth’s interest and involve them in preserving lessons learned. We believe that post-socialist countries from Central Europe to Central Asia has a collective memory about socialist era. Elections, legislation, government, policing etc. meant something very different than nowadays but meant the same for the citizens of the Soviet Union member and partner countries. Preservation and usage as an educational resource of this collective memory is able to strengthen political participation and awareness of democratic values among young people both on national and international level.

Aim of the training were:

• Equip youth workers with museum educational knowledge and exchange ideas about involvement of non-formal education methods in it;
• Create CoMeDeVA Museum Education Program and Guide;
• Finalize report “The role of historical museums in the training and education of young people”

Participants were from Hungary , Lithuania , Uzbekistan , Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan and Slovakia . There were 4 participants from each country.