Abstract:

Participation in democratic and civic life comprises a key ingredient for the promotion of inclusion and empowerment of people in/or at risk of exclusion. Citizens Xelerator is a European project that aims to:
1) strengthen the democratic and civic literacy and social empathy of adults with unmet literacy needs, and
2) contribute to a systemic change in the regional/national/European approach and strategies fostering adults’ participation in democratic life, embrace the common values and civic engagement.

Citizens Xelerator presents a bottom-up approach to promote the literacy, capacitation, empowerment, engagement, and participation of adults with unmet literacy needs in democratic and civic life, which will be ensured by capitalizing on the results from previous European initiatives and upscaling European tools. The project was designed and has been implemented by a consortium of 9 partners, from 8 European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Ireland, Romania and Greece), being addressed to organizations and professionals of adult education and learning, adults with unmet literacy needs and other civil society organizations. Citizens Xelerator project is built-in an innovative methodology comprised of three main phases.

The first phase, Designing innovation, comprises the development of the Citizens Xelerator products and resources. This phase includes the alignment of concepts and the structuring of the topics and contents of the products to be developed, followed by the development of the guidelines, resources, and instruments to be used for the preparation and implementation of the Citizens Xelerator Action Labs. The second phase, Pilot Action, comprises the implementation of the Citizens Xelerator results in the real context of adult learning. To accomplish that, national labs will be established in the partners’ countries, mobilizing the materials and resources available and provided by the local partnerships developed by the consortium. This phase includes the capacitation of the local adult professionals to successfully implement the planned activities, followed by the organization and implementation of the national Citizens Xelerator Action Labs. The third phase, Scaling up and scalability, comprises the scaling up and scalability of the project’s results. During this phase, the partnership will organize national and international events, define the exploitation plan and sustainability strategy and mobilize actions to raise awareness, mobilize and engage the target groups in the project’s activities and maximize the opportunities for multiplication and mainstreaming of the project’s results.

By implementing this innovative methodology, Citizens Xelerator expects to contribute to a systemic change at the regional, national and European levels on the approaches and strategies aimed to support adults’ participation in democratic life.

Keywords:

Participation, democratic literacy, civic engagement, common values.