[:en]Quality of democracy is measured through the level of involvement of citizens in political activities such as voting or presenting initiatives of laws and policies. Although new generations of citizens express themselves more through virtual channels, their political participation via traditional channels is decreasing in most Western countries. Euro-barometer and Latino-barometer have offered enough empirical evidence about this process.

 

While historical political actors (political parties, trade unions and lobbies) and institutions (parliaments) still play roles defined in the 19th century dictionary of democracy, young people are thinking in terms of demands and protests via social media. This political gap is even worse in the case of those young people who belong to the poorest social classes. In a landscape of this kind, quality of democracy is clearly diminished as a consequence of the low levels of conventional political activities exercised by the “replacement generation”. In other words, no young voices expressed means no young voices heard when public policies are designed.

 

“uCivic” aims two objectives: (1) Generate an exchange of good practices (between Italy, Paraguay, Spain and Uruguay) on which strategies really work and are attractive for the civic-political empowerment of new generations (specially youngsters with fewer opportunities). (2) Develop a free virtual ToolKit for civic-political empowerment of new generations. The exchange of good practices and the ToolKit will support organisations and youth workers to execute activities focused on the increase of civic education and political competences of young people with fewer opportunities. Both will include theoretical and practical contents to enable the development among young generations of six specific political competences: active citizenship, political knowledge, political attention, political participation, political efficacy and political tolerance.

 

“uCivic. Using new technologies for civic education. Generating new knowledge on how to support youth workers to increase the political competencies among new generations” (589682-EPP-1-2017-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBY-ACPALA) is a project implemented by Human Rights Youth Organisation (HRYO), Biderbost, Boscan & Rochin (BB&R), Centro de Estudios Paraguayos Antonio Guasch (Cepag) and Asociación Civil Gurises Unidos (Gurises Unidos). Funded with support from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.[:]