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VISION AND GOALS

The European Dialogue is a civic and youth media association founded to promote active citizenship, professional media and art, quality youth work, and media literacy in Slovakia, EU, and beyond. Its team believes that the most important for youth is to live in a safe and inspirational environment, where they can interact with each other, be creative, express their opinions, learn what interests them, and take an initiative to make the world around them a better place. It is also important for them to be able to critically assessing information they receive, disseminate, and communicate.

Rather unique profile of the European Dialogue is combining focus on youth, media, arts, and youth work. The activities of the organisation are therefore targeted at youth in general, young journalists and other media makers, artists, and youth workers. Special attention is paid to young people who face lack of opportunities due to various obstacles, or haven’t been active in the public sphere yet.

The European Dialogue’s activities are following five core objectives, namely:

I

Support

development of talents, creativity and professionalism

II

Raise

information, media and artistic literacy

III

Inform

educate young people about European affairs and combat misinformation about the European Union

IV

Foster

and facilitate youth participation and advocacy

V

Promote

human rights and fundamental freedoms

They are also always based on one or more of the following principles:

  • To be for young people with their active involvement in all stages;
  • Facilitating and encouraging quality media, artistic, and youth work activities;
  • Connecting media makers with representatives of various professions;
  • Providing opportunities for young people and youth workers to acquire new knowledge and competences and contribute to a positive change at personal/local/regional/European level;
  • Fostering media and digital literacy;
  • Putting emphasis on accuracy, transparency, social responsibility, active citizenship, innovativeness, and dialogue;
  • Promoting volunteering and solidarity;
  • Facilitating connections and collaboration in Slovakia and Europe.

The organisation is able to help youngsters to get new competences in its and their relevant topics of interest, develop their talents, be media literate and resistant to misinformation, use all the opportunities they have and be prepared for challenges, and be conscious of the impact of various activities on society and nature. It facilitates creation of quality media and art works by young people, dialogue between the youth and policy makers, and fosters active European citizenship.

The organisation also focuses on youth workers, for whom it’s important to be knowledgeable in various topics so that they can deliver high-quality youth work, but also inspire and empower young people to be active citizens developing their own projects and initiatives. The European Dialogue is putting an emphasis on digital youth work and use of media in this field.

The European Dialogue empowers young people and youth workers to be the tolerant educated individuals, who have a spirit of initiative, care about their environment, and actively contribute to positive developments in their communities or societies through online and offline participation tools. This approach is relevant also to the media and arts field, where the European Dialogue promotes engagement with an audience, quality and responsible production, and cooperation across professions and borders.

The European Dialogue represents Slovakia in two European networks that gather youth organisations from all around Europe and even beyond – the European Youth Press and Prisma European network. It also maintains strategic partnerships with other youth or media organisations and is a local multiplier of Eurodesk.