This is one of the main questions of our project, Changing Democracies, for which we are launching a series of webinars. As part of the project, we collected testimonies from 31 people who openly shared their experiences with democratic transitions, reflecting on big picture questions and recounting daily experiences. The witnesses came from countries across Europe, including Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We have used their stories to critically reflect on what democracy means to us today. 

Over the past few months, we have developed new learning activities in collaboration with our project partners, tackling themes related to history, democracy and citizenship. Listening to the testimonies of our witnesses about their experience growing up in authoritarian regimes, living through democratic transitions and their reflections on the challenges that we face in our democracies today, we invite young people across Europe to reflect on what democracy means to them. Using activating learning methodologies, we challenge young people to think about what makes them angry about the world today, what influences them in life, and what they expect from a democracy. Each package of learning activities focuses on a driving question like these, which were developed based on recurring themes that we identified in the witness testimonies.

During each webinar, we will present one of the learning activities that you can do with your students, give you the opportunity to work on it and ask for your feedback.

This webinar series is part of the Changing Democracies project in partnership with the Association for History Education in Greece, Autres Directions, Borderland Foundation, Evens Foundation, Flemish Peace Institute, In Medias Res, Faculty of Arts at Charles University, Research Institute in Art, Design and Society at the University of Porto, Mediawise Society, Museum of Slavonia, Open Lithuania Foundation, and School for a Culture of Peace at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. You can learn more about the project by visiting its website here: https://www.changingdemocracies.eu/.