The project, “Подай сигнал” (in English: Signal for Change), aims to develop an online platform in Bulgaria that educates and guides citizens through the process of reporting various issues affecting their local communities. These include urban and public infrastructure problems, administrative and institutional misconduct, vandalism and violence, environmental concerns, and violations of laws and regulations. While users cannot directly submit reports through the platform, it will provide clear instructions on the reporting process and guide them to the appropriate institutions. Initially, the platform will be available exclusively in Bulgarian.

The Youth Climate Dialogues use participatory and storytelling methods to create immersive events bringing together EU decision-makers from the European Parliament, European Commission, and the Council with diverse young people across Europe. These Dialogues challenge the traditional ‘panel discussion’ format and replace it with innovative deliberation methods focused on resilience,
diversity, and collaboration in democracy. The event mixes storytelling, role-swapping between youth and decision-makers, and eyewitness talks to ensure meaningful youth engagement in decision-making. A key feature is the follow-up mechanism, where EU representatives must provide a written response to youth proposals after each event.

The Decolonial Film Festival (DFF) is a cultural and educational initiative that uses the power of cinema to promote critical awareness of colonial history and its contemporary consequences. By showcasing films from marginalised and diasporic voices accompanied by debates and discussions, the DFF creates spaces for reflection, dialogue, and community building. Our objective is to make decolonial ideas more accessible and engage audiences in questioning societal norms shaped by colonial legacies. To achieve this, we will organise the second edition of our festival in May 2025, coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival, offering a critical and accessible alternative to its elitist framework.

Noisy Youth is a creative response to low civic engagement and media literacy among Bulgarian youth. Through expert-led training, youth will produce six podcast episodes, join a cross-cultural exchange with Latvian peers, and host the Voices of the Future festival. The initiative fosters critical thinking, communication, and teamwork while building a sustainable, youth-led media platform. By combining digital storytelling, civic participation, and international collaboration, Noisy Youth empowers young people to shape civic discourse in their communities.

The BRIDGE project is an inclusive initiative aimed at bridging the digital divide and fostering intergenerational solidarity. It empowers senior citizens with essential digital skills and media literacy through a hybrid training model that combines online learning with in-person mentoring. Young volunteers will guide seniors in using digital tools to access public services, critically assess online information, and participate actively in civic life. The project promotes mutual understanding and collaboration between generations while creating a sustainable learning ecosystem. Through community campaigns, partnerships with civic organizations, and EU-level support, BRIDGE aims to scale its impact and contribute to a more digitally inclusive and socially connected Europe.

The Exposing Scams project, in partnership with Fundación Maldita.es (Spain) aims to promote transparency and social responsibility among companies whose brands are misused in online scams, ultimately protecting citizens from fraud. Its general goal is to help companies understand the social and economic harms caused when their brand identities are weaponized to deceive users, extract personal data, or manipulate financial behavior. Maldita.es will develop a blueprint with real-life case studies, detection methods, and strategies, while Faktograf will localize this blueprint for Croatia and deliver in-person training to equip professionals with the tools to recognize and counter such scams. Online social media campaign will raise awareness of professionals and citizens how brands are exploited in scams. By shifting the focus from brand protection to citizen protection, the project fosters accountability and enhances digital resilience.

Money Talks is the next chapter in the evolution of the EmpowerHer project, launched in 2024 to address critical gaps in financial literacy. This new initiative goes deeper — tackling not only financial knowledge, but also the psychological blocks, gender stereotypes, and social pressures that hinder young people from achieving true financial independence.
Targeted at young adults (18–25), Money Talks blends practical skills with emotional insight. Participants will explore budgeting, saving, and investing, while also confronting money-related fears, cultural expectations, and societal roles. The program includes online workshops (6 webinars, 26 participants) and powerful storytelling events in Bulgaria and Ukraine.
One key insight from our first project: change must include everyone. That’s why Money Talks invites both young women and men to break down stereotypes, reimagine financial roles, and build a more inclusive, confident financial future – together.

Regenerative Economy Pioneers will help catalyse the transformation of our economies from ones that are degenerative to human and planetary wellbeing, to ones that are regenerative–working in service of people and the planet. First, we will design two live workshop formats in collaboration with academics and experts. We will then pilot them in Austria and Czechia, bringing together groups of around 20 people from varied backgrounds to explore regenerative economy approaches and co-create ways to adapt and implement them in their contexts—whether in their communities, their organisations, by building new alliances or by pushing for policy transformations. We will then design and facilitate a workshop for a group of committed educators from different EU countries in which we will share our learnings and develop open-source teaching materials—helping to build a growing community of educators and changemakers across the region.

The SHE COUNTS initiative aims to raise the awareness of women in areas which impact their economic situation and to improve financial literacy: knowledge, behaviour, and attitude. The project promotes gender equality, financial well-being, independence, and long-term financial security, so that women become less financially vulnerable. Through inclusive outreach in Serbian, the project supports women from diverse backgrounds, particularly young women, mothers, LGBTQ+ individuals in Serbia, and BKS-speaking migrants women in Austria. It includes a kickoff event in Vienna, followed by five interactive educational sessions on budgeting, saving, investing, avoiding financial scams, entrepreneurship, and financial behaviour. Participants benefit from peer support through accountability partnerships and can access 1:1 financial mentoring. Content will be available for public use via digital platforms.

The memory issue is one of the dividing axes between Bulgaria and Macedonia; the memory of the Holocaust is particularly polarising. The project’s specific objective is to introduce youth from the two states to its history through the learning-by-doing method. During a travelling seminar in both states, up to 16 young people will explore key memorial sites and produce videos, which will be uploaded to an interactive online memory map. The story will be told through the eyes of the younger generation, who will demonstrate they can remember the past without making it a conflicting point of nationalist narratives.

The organisation has received CIF funding for two projects.

Schools and AI: The project consisted of the dynamic three-day forum “Schools and AI: Risks and Opportunities” on 24-26 January 2025, Lisbon, Portugal, focused on AI ethics in civic education, where educators, students, parents, experts, and civic activists came together to examine the transformative impact of AI and tackle emerging ethical challenges.

Project results & AI toolbox

Media Minds: The project will foster media and digital literacy through an open semester, development of a set of educational cards, and a public Media Minds Day in Lisbon planned for January 2026.

The DSPC project aimed to build empathy and support reconciliation among European communities affected by historical conflicts. Through the collection and sharing of personal stories, it helped bridge social divides and encouraged meaningful dialogue. At the heart of the project was a user-friendly digital platform designed to host and share these diverse narratives with the wider public.

Project results

“Expedition 17” was an interactive educational project for Ukrainian youth in the Stuttgart region on SDGs with a set of lectures, excursions, and creative workshops. The culmination of “Expedition 17” was an art exhibition in Stuttgart, where the 17 art objects produced by the Ukrainian youth were presented to the general public, encouraging dialogue between German and Ukrainian communities.

Project results

The Cross Border Creativity project combined site-specific research and hands-on creative workshops for young disadvantaged people, led by artists Grainne McMenamin and Catherine Bourne. These workshops focused on celebrating natural heritage and fostered a sense of community, encouraged self-expression, and built lasting friendships, all while promoting sustainable creative practices that can be continued and shared into the future.

Project results

AIEdu promoted innovative approaches to citizenship education by exploring the societal impact of artificial intelligence. The project empowered young educators to use technology responsibly and respectfully in their teaching, while helping students build digital skills and AI competencies to uphold human rights and foster inclusion in the digital age.

Project results & survey

The “From Dump to Art: Confronting Illegal Waste Dumping” project was carried out over 12 months in three rural locales: Podravske Sesvete (Croatia), Pécsvárad (Hungary) and Vršac (Serbia). The initiative instilled environmental responsibility in local communities, raised awareness of the adverse effects of illegal dumping through art and film, and developed a model for wider project replication in rural settings. 

Project results & video

Inspired by Facebook posts from Ukrainians and Russians during the war, this performative art project featured a dance piece based on personal quotes. Audience members could ‘like’, ‘dislike’, or add their own messages to a chalk wall. During the performance, dancers erased these inscriptions and dismantled the wall, symbolising dialogue, reconciliation, and the shared destruction across both sides of the conflict.

Project results

This project explored how new technologies can facilitate communication between local governments and citizens. It assessed the utility of AI-supported chatbots in gathering data and opinions to assist public administration in designing effective policies. This project bridged this gap through the iterative development of chatbots, testing their utility for public administration experts. The resulting insights serve as guidance for future regulations on such technologies and were presented to European and national regulatory agencies.

Project results

This initiative developed and showcased innovative games designed to teach civics in a fun and engaging way. The project featured two in-person and online events focused on gamification for teachers. Following these, additional games were created to further support educators. Participants reported that these new methods challenged their traditional approaches to teaching civics and inspired them to adopt more interactive, playful techniques.

Project results: game “Cards for Humanity“, game “Big Questions“, and “Design your game” sprint.

The “Young Changemaker Challenge” educated and empowered young people aged 15 to 25 from all over the world to actively participate in democracy and policy-making, focusing on pressing issues related to sustainability and climate change. It achieved this by fostering a cross-cultural dialogue, then facilitating international teams to develop concrete initiatives, and mentoring them to implement the projects in their communities.

Project results

GEODEM-AI addressed democratic principles, civic engagement, and social responsibility of AI in geographic information by offering interactive multimedia training materials for teachers and educators based on real-world civic applications. Through the research review, online training module, guidelines/recommendations and teacher stories, GEODEM-AI encouraged an informed, healthy, critical view of ethical issues related to the positive and negative challenges from the rise of AI for the collection, use, reuse, and storage of geographic information and geo-data in education.

Project results

Consumer rights and responsible consumption are unfortunately still not widely understood in countries like Bulgaria and Serbia. Typical problems relate to insufficient or incorrect information provided by the producers or (re)sellers and the consumers are often left to manage by themselves. The main objective of the project was to increase the level of financial and economic literacy by providing the target group with knowledge and instruments to improve their ability to make conscious and responsible decisions.

Project results

This project offered a transformative journey, reflecting on stereotypes and challenges in two different yet similar cultural norms – Ukraine and Bulgaria. Targeting financial literacy, the project empowered 20 participants from two countries to become financially independent, recognise opportunities, and equipped them with the knowledge and skills needed for self-determination.

Project results