Below you can see all the projects that have been supported by the Civic Innovation Fund.
Digital Storytelling for Peaceful Coexistence
Center of Innovational Social Research of YSU
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The DSPC project is a transformative initiative aimed at fostering empathy and promoting reconciliation among historically conflict-impacted European communities. By collecting and sharing personal narratives, the DSPC project seeks to bridge societal divides and inspire meaningful dialogues. At its core, the project centres around a user-friendly digital platform where these diverse narratives will be hosted and made accessible to the public.
Expedition 17 – Exploring Sustainable Development Goals through art and entertainment
Ukrainisches Atelier für Kultur & Sport (UAKS) e. V.
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“Expedition 17” – is 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” will be an art exhibition in Stuttgart, where the 17 art objects produced by the Ukrainian youth will be presented to the general public, encouraging dialogue between German and Ukrainian communities.
Cross Border Creativity
NorthWork Ireland
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The Cross Border Creativity project combines site-specific research and hands-on creative workshops for young disadvantaged people, led by artists Grainne McMenamin and Catherine Bourne. These workshops focus on celebrating our natural heritage and aims to foster a sense of community, encourage self-expression, and build lasting friendships, all while promoting sustainable creative practices that can be continued and shared into the future.
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AIEdu aims to encourage the development of new approaches and teaching practices in citizenship education by focusing on the impact of AI on society. AIEdu aims to support young educators to become better aware of the responsible and respectful ways to use technology as part of their work, and support the development of the students’ digital skills and AI competencies in order to protect and promote human rights and inclusion in the digital era.
From Dump to Art: Confronting Illegal Waste Dumping
SUMA – Association for Sustainable Development
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The “From Dump to Art: Confronting Illegal Waste Dumping” project will be carried out over 12 months in three rural locales: Podravske Sesvete (Croatia), Pécsvárad (Hungary) and Vršac (Serbia). The initiative aims to instil environmental responsibility in local communities, raise awareness of the adverse effects of illegal dumping through art and film, and develop a model for wider project replication in rural settings.
Facebook Choreography
Arms Wide Open Association
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Posts from Ukrainians and Russians on Facebook during the war inspire a performative laboratory of this project. Choreographers from Ukraine and Russia will stage a dance performance based on personal quotes. Audience engagement includes ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ inscriptions on a wall installation, with the opportunity to add their own chalk inscription. Dancers will erase these inscriptions symbolically, dismantling the wall as a metaphor for dialogue and the end of conflict, echoing the destruction in bombed cities on both sides of the border.
Chatbot for Local Governments
Lab of Change
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This project aims to explore how new technologies can facilitate communication between local governments and citizens. Its main objective is to assess the utility of AI-supported chatbots in gathering data and opinions to assist public administration in designing effective policies. This project aims to bridge this gap through the iterative development of chatbots, testing their utility for public administration experts. The resulting insights will guide future regulations on such technologies and will be presented to European and national regulatory agencies.
Civics Through Play
Civics Through Play
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We design workshops and experiences that develop the skills needed to promote constructive dialogue and civic-mindedness. In a polarized world, we need to find ways to build consensus. Using the power of play, we promote civic-mindedness in a whole new way.
Orientuj.sie
Association 61
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At Stowarzyszenie 61 we believe that mobilising young voters for the upcoming elections hinges on raising their awareness of the European Community. Operating both on TikTok (@Orientuj.sie) and our website (MamPrawoWiedzec.pl), we deliver fact-based content. As part of the project, we will prepare summaries of European Parliament sessions, reviews of actions taken by Polish MEPs, and explanations of the functioning of institutions and electoral procedures. Our ultimate goal is to integrate EU topics into conversations among the youngest members of Polish civil society, fostering informed participation in democratic processes.
#YCM – Young Changemaker Challenge
YEP Stimme der Jugend
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The “Young Changemaker Challenge” aims to educate and empower 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 does 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.
Talking heads
Unhack Democracy
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“Talking Heads” is going to be a service accessible via Viber, allowing users to ask questions and receive the most relevant video clip as a response, which they can watch and share. Utilising AI, specifically natural language processing, it will select from a collection of pre-recorded clips featuring volunteers.
AI for Innovative Solutions
Comdev group
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The project aims to strengthen civil society by providing community leaders with practical knowledge, artificial intelligence tools, and support for secure management of their organisations online. The project consists of a lecture series on the ethics of AI application, a workshop on creating AI assistants, video recording of workshops and their distribution on social media. The project plans to attract at least 20 community leaders to lectures and workshops and create 10-15 AI bots. It also aims to reach an audience of 10,000 views in the first month.
Schools and AI: risks and opportunities
Jornada Convidativa Associação
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The project consists of the dynamic three-day forum “Schools and AI: Risks and Opportunities” on 25-27 October 2024, Lisbon, Portugal, focused on AI ethics in civic education, where educators, students, parents, experts, and civic activists come together to examine the transformative impact of AI and tackle emerging ethical challenges. The project will explore AI ethical problems in civic education with students: shaping tomorrow’s perspectives on benefits and risks.
GEODEM – AI
EUROGEO
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GEODEM-AI addresses 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. It aims to foster active citizenship and education. Through the research review, online training module, guidelines/recommendations and teacher stories, GEODEM-AI will encourage 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.
AI.D – Artificial Intelligence and the Shaping of Democracy
Demokratiezentrum Wien
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The Artificial Intelligence and the Shaping of Democracy (AI.D) project aims to improve the digital skills of teachers and students in vocational schools, contribute to the social discourse about AI and raise awareness of the use of AI in various areas of life. This project aims to develop an innovative teaching/learning webinar about AI and its relations to democratic challenges. The project is for upper secondary school teachers and students in Austrian and German vocational schools.
InnoMate
United Way Hungary
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With professional experts, we created a unique curriculum called InnoMate, which equips youth with essential work and entrepreneurial skills. Through teamwork, 600 students will tackle real-world issues, enhancing their problem-solving abilities since 2018. The program itself is 8 months long, led by pre-trained teachers. It starts in each participating school with a one-day Hackathon, followed by a 12-week Innovation Club. Students also visit companies for workplace observation and meet role models. The program includes multi-round competitions, a 3-day innovation camp with experts, and pitch presentations.
EmpowerHer
ETC – Education-Truth-Culture
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This project offers a transformative journey, reflecting on stereotypes and challenges in two different yet similar cultural norms – Ukraine and Bulgaria. Targeting financial literacy, we aim to empower 20 participants from two countries to become financially independent, recognise opportunities, and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed for self-determination.
Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools
Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann
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Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools is an innovative secondary school economics syllabus, accompanied by an open-access online textbook and a global movement of educators aiming to shift economics teaching towards meeting the needs of all within planetary boundaries. The project will work with teachers at both grassroots and systems levels to reform national and internationally mandated curricula in the EU.
Empowering Consumers Through Financial Literacy
Rilski Center for Scientific Research
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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 is 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.
Signal for Change
Tsarski Pishtovi
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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.
Media Literacy and Civic Education from Early On
Gutenberg 3.0 foundation
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The project aims to develop the media literacy and global competencies of young schoolchildren in Bulgaria (age 6-14) by producing and publishing quality journalistic content for www.Vijte.bg and turning it into educational material to be used in primary and secondary schools.
Balkan Human Rights Cities Initiative
Albania Sustainable Development Organization ASDO
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The initiative aims to establish a set of standards for cities to be recognised as “Human Rights Cities”, strengthening local governance, enhancing policymaking, promoting human rights, integrating diversity and inclusion, training of local government officials and ensuring that the voices and needs of all citizens, particularly marginalised groups, are heard.