EU za mene, EU za tebe

“EU for me – EU for you” was a HERMES project implemented during 2018 and 2019, financed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia. The overall objective of the project was to enhance civic participation of direct and indirect beneficiaries by informing young people about the European Union, Croatia’s membership in the European Union, EU topics and policies, and information on the rights and obligations that derive from Croatia’s membership in the European Union. General and specific objectives of the project were accomplished by the implementation of three different activities, providing participants with new knowledge and skills.

At the first project activity, through lectures and workshops, the importance of monitoring the work of European and Croatian institutions and the context of domestic and European policies and its impact on the daily life of young people and society in general were presented to young people. A workshop on improving the skills of investigative journalism, digital security knowledge and professional reporting on the EU to young students of journalism was also conducted.

The second activity of the project gave young people a closer look at the structure and functioning of EU institutions and explained to them the process of European parliamentary elections. In addition, the importance of civic participation in elections and in general public discourse with the institutions of the Republic of Croatia and the EU was emphasized. In the third project activity, we successfully trained young people to prepare and apply for projects funded by national and European funds, in order to encourage their contribution to the realization of a better society.

The project has achieved the following results:

  • about 135 young people are directly informed about EU policies, the functioning of EU institutions, the way they make decisions, the opportunities offered by the EU, the benefits of EU membership and the need for active participation in democratic life at local, national and EU levels, the importance of participating in the European Parliamentary elections;
  • the skills of investigative journalism, digital security knowledge and EU reporting have been improved in 6 young journalism students;
  • Public speaking, debating, analytical and critical skills have been improved with at least 35 participants;
  • the skills of preparing projects for the application for tenders financed from national and European funds have been improved in 15 young people;
  • the dissemination of the results has led to about 7,500 indirect users.