Citizenship education
Since 2008, Controvento has carried out, both at a European and a local level, numerous tests in the frame of education for sustainable development and youth civic participation. This has enabled its educators to identify and collect, in a systematic way, some of the training needs perceived by young people. What emerged is a picture in which a strong sense of loneliness percolates the world of youth in a time that deals with global challenges such as the current environmental, economic and social crises, to which the adult world is still often disoriented. To this perception of isolation and neglect, a strong feeling of helplessness is associated. This is shown by the difficulty to both read the present and to interpret retrospectively past events. Students complain of a shortage of tools for interpreting the actuality and a lack of autonomy and critical spirit, essential conditions to be able to process information, to form an opinion and act, transforming the reality: "we live in this world, but we do not have the tools neither to understand nor change it.". The young people who were surveyed ask adults to provide them, from the very beginning of their education, methodological tools for "learning to learn" and not only disciplinary, but also civic and social skills "to make current events comprehensible, to be able to take possession of our rights and our duties and to act. "
In this scenario, citizenship education has the potential to promote in younger generations critical thinking on the needs of society and on their role within it, their potential and their ideas for improving the community they belong to.
The Controvento’s citizenship education projects are carried out at a local or international level. The local project "My Neighborhood", "Biodiversity Keeper Schools" and the regional projects “We are Born to Walk", "Civic Cities", "Let's Change Gear", which Controvento performs in collaboration with the Municipality of Cesena, address children. On the other hand, the participatory processes "I Young Citizen in Europe", "Resilience cities" and other civic engagement projects, allowing young people to join relevant international events, involve young people. Among them, over the years, Controvento gave young people the opportunity to take part in:
- 2nd World Science and Democracy Forum in Dakar
- 6th World Water Forum in Marseille
- EuroPie, the Youth Festi-Forum of Alternatives in Toulouse
- 1st European Forum of Committed Youth in Poitiers
- MedCOP 21 in Marseille
- COP 21 in Paris
- Summer University of International Solidarity and Social Movement in Besançon
- Conference of Youth 12 and COP 22 in Marrakech
- IUCN World Conference in Marseille
From 2017 to 2019, Controvento was engaged, together with the Department of Psychology - Cesena UOS of the University of Bologna, in the project "Being Human, Living Together", which was supported by the European Union's Erasmus+ Programme.
