The project is a response to the problem of poor public participation among youth, which has emerged from daily interactions with young people and is confirmed by research. The 2011 Social Diagnosis and CBOS's Youth 2010 reports directly point out that young people are passive and do not engage in community affairs. There are a number of root causes: copying passive behaviours and attitudes of adults, no provision of civic education in schools (education is strongly focused on theory). Polish teenagers are among the lowest scorers in international research studies on public debate and initiative. Youth lack language skills to allow meaningful participation in public debates, writing texts, presentation of views and opinions.
The goal of the project is to eliminate barriers to youth community engagement and develop language skills by developing civic stories and educating through story-telling. A group of young people have written 32 civic stories for pre-school children. They attended storytelling, civics, graphic design and global education workshops. The workshops lasted a total of 24 hours
and helped youth gain essential information and skills to be able to develop and illustrate stories for children. Thirty two audio stories have been recorded by celebrities (200 CDs) and 1,000 copies have been printed and the deliverables have then been distributed to pre-schools and children and youth organisations (10 meetings in pre-schools). Project participants could learn public participation while organising four civic street events and visiting two organisations where democratic principles, public
participation and civic engagement are happening in practice. The target group are middle school students and pre-school children and pre-school teachers in Racibórz.
The project has been implemented in partnership with the CRIS Association which has provided
technical assistance.