Teaching EU history

In Slovenia

Zavod Boter started with the first phase of local implementations with the first event in July 2021. With the event we wanted to deepen the knowledge of young people about the history of EU and its purpose, while also come up with ideas on how to present the historic topic to the youth – that we could use in the later phases of the prpject

The first event was organised on the 27th July 2021 and the target group were the volunteers, youth workers and social workers from Novo mesto and the wider region, most of them have been involved with the Boter Institute in the past.

Project DESIRE was presented, what it wants to achieve, how it will be implemented …

History of the European Union, how it started with the Schuman’s idea, how it grew, the institutions that were established, countries that joined … eventually coming to the present day EU. And all it represents.

The emphasis was on bigger historical events, dates, treaties and institutions, along with enlargements, as well as the path of Slovenia joining the EU and what it meant.

Further enlargement of the EU was also discussed, some of the participants were immigrants and shared their opinions on other countries joining the EU (most notably North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Many of the volunteers are also youth workers and they have experience in working with youth as well as tutoring them on different subjects. We wanted their opinion on how we can best present the history of the EU to the youth. The bigger part of the workshop was a brainstorming debate, where the participants shared their opinion on teaching history to youth in an interesting way. The volunteers, some of them youths themselves, stated, that young people today prefer interactive forms of learning, and that in the digitalized world the information needs to be summed up, as people have a shorter attention span. Since many youths like watching informative videos on YouTube and other channels, we have decided that we will use this technique to teach them about the Schuman declaration and the history of the EU.