Why do people believe conspiracy theories and how can we counteract them? How can we teach young people to respect other cultures and counteract social polarization? How can we encourage them to take a more critical stance, to react and act upon human rights violations? These are some of the questions which were discussed during 9 national workshops organised from December 2020 to March 2021 in Austria, France and Poland in the context of the project Resilience through Education for Democratic Citizenship reaching more than 140 social workers, teachers and students of social work as well as representatives from civil society organisations.

The workshop participants reflected upon their own work, shared good practices and further developed innovative methodologies to teach human rights, citizenship and resilience against radicalisation, conspiracy theories and online hate speech.

“The exercises encouraged reflection on one's own values and are easy to implement in working with children and young people." said one workshop participant in Austria, continuing: "It is worthwhile to work with the "wisdom of the group". It gives you the opportunity to take up topics and aspects that children or young people are currently dealing with.”

The innovative methods developed during the workshops will be compiled in an interactive handbook available for university teachers, social workers and youth workers across Europe.

The project “Resilience through Education for Democratic Citizenship” is funded by the European Union/Council of Europe Joint Programme “Democratic and Inclusive School Culture in Operation (DISCO)” and aims to strengthen social and youth workers’ competences for democratic culture.