Citizen School

About Us

In our modern societies, racism and discrimination are increasingly present. Young people feel less concerned by these issues and this generates incivilities. In this context, it is very important to inform, educate, explain and question the role of national and European citizenship, regarding interculturalism, tolerance and mutual respect, so that the target public is fully aware of its role and responsibility.

A consortium of partners has been created since September 2014 and has been working on these issues:- 3 associations : le Partenariat (France), Studio Globo (Belgium) and CityLink Haarlem (the Netherlands)- 3 higher education institutions : Dundalk Institute of Technology (Ireland), Artesis Plantijn Hogeschool Antwerpen (Belgium) and ISPGaya - Instituto Superior Politécnico (Portugal). The strength of this consortium resides in its co-construction. Each partner will take part in all the project's activities (this will guarantee that the specific needs in each partner country are taken into account and ensure the quality of the created tools). However, each partner has their own specialities and competences and will be responsible for one activity in particular.

Based on the strengths and the competences of each partner, the consortium has set the following overall objective for the project: "to contribute to the creation of a European society, which is more inclusive and respectful of all, by educating and empowering young people and their teachers about interculturalism."

In order to implement the various activities of the project, several operational objectives have been determined:
Creation of immersive contextual serious games for young people
Training of teachers, so that they can themselves bring awareness to their students and thus increase the impact of the project
Link and empower high-school students, university students and teachers in the different partner countries, so they can discuss the topics and create new game content
Dissemination of project tools, to increase their impact. In particular the activities will look at the areas of active citizenship, tolerance and respect for others.

The target public is composed of students (20 to 25 year olds), high school students (15 to 18 year olds) and their teachers. The activities are the following:
Creation of a serious game and a user manual, focused on the specific issues, which will be distributed freely to teachers, for use with their students. This game will be created by Irish, Belgian and Portuguese students, with the support of the partners and other resource persons (teachers, high schools students, serious game specialists, national education representatives...)
Organisation of two international camps for the Belgian, Irish and Portuguese students, in order to form international work groups to produce the serious game.
Involvement of young people with fewer opportunities during the creation of the serious game (tests and choice of content).
Creation and Implementation of training courses for teachers wishing to use the created tool.
Creation of a web platform, where the various tools and documents will be available for download and where project participants will be able to communicate with each other.
Dissemination of the tools via websites, events, resource centres, newsletters...The project aims to reach 7320 people (high school students, teachers, students, European organisations). At least 4 "test" groups of students and their teachers will take part in the creation of the game alongside the partner organisations, university students, NGOs (youth, solidarity...), members of educational authorities...The results and the dissemination will continue after the end of the project, because the tools will be downloadable for free on the web platform.

Partner Organisations

CitizenSchool consists of five partners organisations. The project is being lead by the French N.G.O. Le Partenariat, which is based in Lille. Two other N.G.O.s, Studio Globo from Brussels in Belgium and Stedenband Haarlem-Mutare from Haarlem in the Netherlands. There are also three universities involved in the project. These are Dundalk Institute of Technology, from Ireland, Artesis Plantijn Hogeschool Antwerpen from Belgium and ISPGaya from Portugal.