The European Commission has announced the list of winners of the 2019 Altiero Spinelli Prize. The Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe is one of the 16 winners from all over Europe, thereby the first Polish organization in the history of this competition to receive such a distinction.
The Altiero Spinelli Prize has been awarded since 2017 and is a recognition of outstanding activities that promote understanding of the European Union as an integration project and its values. It focuses in particular on initiatives that help young citizens to engage in the democratic processes shaping the future of the EU. In the last edition of the Altiero Spinelli Prize, the activities undertaken in 2019 were assessed, and the work of the International Youth Meeting Center in Krzyżowa was recognized as outstanding in Europe.
The part of the ceremony with the announcement of the winners, including the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, starts at 1:04 of the broadcast. We invite you to watch an interview with the winners - including Anna Kudarewska from the Krzyżowa Foundation.
Expert jurors paid particular attention to the very ambitious nature of the IYMC projects, the basis of which are meetings of young people from Poland, Germany and often also from other countries. Young people participating in these projects receive a unique chance to learn in an informal atmosphere to discuss, understand people with different views, experiences and expectations, as well as express their opinions and confront them with the opinions of peers in order to build consensus around different views. In this way, young people can better understand their own role in contemporary Europe.
During 30 years of operation, the International Youth Meeting Center in Krzyżowa has cooperated with over 250 schools and institutions, mainly from Poland and Germany, implementing projects with the participation of young people from various backgrounds, with different material status and experiences, also addressed to people with disabilities and disadvantaged groups. Many of them, participating in the projects of the Krzyżowa Foundation, had a chance to meet their peers from other countries for the first time and could overcome barriers created by tragic events in the past. Joint talks about the history and future of Europe, as well as everyday life as seen through the eyes of teenagers, contributed to strengthening the European dialogue by continuing it through the young generation.
Altiero Spinelli (1907–1986) was an Italian politician and political scientist considered to be one of the founding fathers of the European Union. He is the co-author of the Ventotene Manifesto, played a significant role in the federalist movement, had a strong influence on European integration in the first decades and in the 1980s. The main building of the European Parliament in Brussels is named after him.
The list of all winners is available on the website of the competition organizer.
The first online workshop (out of the three planned) took place on 10-12 December as part of the project "My Europe of Freedoms / Mein Europa der Freiheit / My Evropa Svobody".
The main theme of the first two days of the meeting was the political, social and cultural breakthroughs of 1990 in the then Poland, NDR and Czechoslovakia. What moved people at that time and what reasons did they have to take to the streets and fight for their rights? These questions were faced by young people aged 16-29 from Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic taking part in workshops and a joint discussion about the past, common values and a common future. On the third day of the workshop, the participants learned how to write a historical-political essay.
Read more: My Europe of Freedom. International Essay Competition. Online ideas workshop - 10-12.12.2020
Since the beginning of the Corona pandemic, numerous explanations and conspiracy theories have been circulating on the Internet and in social media about the origins of the virus and how to deal with it correctly. On the 25.11.2020 the participants of the webinar series #Creatingspace dealt with the complex of topics "conspiracy theory" from a historical, scientific and political perspective.
We took a look at examples of extreme mobilizations and offers of interpretation and unraveled who benefits from the dissemination of such content. On the one hand, conspiracy stories are attractive - especially in times of crisis - because they offer simple answers to very complex questions. On the other hand, extreme right-wing actors take advantage of all this to assert their interests. The webinar was led by Carolin Sokele.
Read more: Webinar || #Creatingspace: conspiracy theories - 25.11.2020
The Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe started a close cooperation with the Anne Frank House, a foundation located in Amsterdam and running a museum in the place where Anne Frank was hiding from the Nazis and writing her own journal, already known all over the world . For more than 50 years, the Anne Frank House has also been involved in educational activities, mainly aimed at combating discrimination and inequality.
This year we are working together on the 'Stories that Move' project. It is an online toolkit that requires students to think critically about diversity and discrimination, and also encourages them to reflect on their own attitudes and the resulting choices. The kit consists of ready-made learning paths that combine information, tasks to be done and stories from people's lives. In short video materials, young people share their experiences, both good ones and situations related to exclusion, discrimination and hate crimes. These poignant stories provide a starting point for a thorough understanding of the various issues related to discrimination.
Read more: „Stories that Move". Project of the Krzyżowa Foundation and the Anne Frank House
