Democracy and Human Rights Education (DARE) - Germany
Erasmus +, Grundtvig, Vocational Education and Training (Leonardo da Vinci) – 26 EU countries – 2003 – present
‘There has never been an EU programme that has been so open to promote democracy.’
‘Thrilling, exhausting and addictive’ - this is how Georg Pirker describes his 17 years at the helm of the DARE Network. It all started in 2003 as a Grundtvig project but today boasts 48 member organisations from 26 EU countries. DARE helps organisations involved in human rights and democratic citizenship education (EDC) to share experiences, create exchanges, and enhance the quality of their education programmes in democracy and active citizenship.
Examples include France’s ENGAGE, which focused on encouraging school children (aged 8-12) to think democratically in the classroom. Another in Portugal known as STEPS developed a media relations toolkit for educators working the field of democracy. EDC for All developed a game-based low-threshold educational entry programme for people facing difficulties to access citizenship and Human Rights Education.
Over 17 years, up to 30,000 trainers and other educators have been involved in DARE and the network looks set to continue well into the future. ‘After all, the debate on democracy and active citizenship is continually evolving and we need to be there to question societal developments, especially in today’s political climate, where the challenge in more and more countries is to connect the EU work back to the ground of societal debates’ said Georg. Subsequently DARE´s current project STEPS aims to develop a Survival Toolkit for EDC in Post-truth Societies.