SOJOVEM (Portugal) – October 2021

The DOE event in Portugal took place in Ermesinde, Valongo on October 28th and 29th, 2021.

On the first day of the event, October 28th 2021, two conferences were held, followed by a workshop aimed at young students aged between 13 and 18 years. The first conference was held by an invited speaker, Professor Dr. Rui Pires, Master in European Studies, Doctor in Intercultural Relations and Researcher in the field of Social Sciences. The theme brought up by this speaker was the following: “AZIMUT: dialogues about cultures and human rights. Erasmus’ formula for Europe in the century. XXI”. At this time, a presentation was made to the audience who were watching online.

The second conference was also conducted by a guest speaker, Professor Alessandra Silveira, PhD in Law (Legal-Political Sciences), Director of UNIO – EU Law Journal and of the blog associated with the magazine “Thinking & Debating Europe “, and Director of the Master’s Degree in European Union Law at the University of Minho, and the topic brought up for discussion was the “Rule of Law in Europe”.

Also on this day, a workshop was conducted by youth workers from Sójovem das Saibreiras Association, with the contribution of Mr. Luís Ramalho, its General Secretary, on the theme of Erasmus + and the European Solidarity Corps. This workshop was held at Campo Highschool, in Valongo. The platform of the European Solidarity Corps (https://europa.eu/youth/solidarity/young-people/volunteering_pt), was used and demonstrated, and there were also testimonies of volunteering under the European Solidarity Corps, which reported their experiences, as well as talking about all the skills they developed and personal gains.

One of the methods used for the activities was to ask youngsters to volunteer to carry out a simulation activity about looking for opportunities in the EU for volunteer projects.

In addition, a questionnaire was carried out with the students of one of the games available on the EU’s official website, in the “Learning Corner” (https://europa.eu/learning-corner/quiz_en), a video on youth mobility was shown (https://europa.eu/learning-corner/work-and-study_pt), and a lecture was given about how mobility and hostings in the countries work in practice.

On the second day of the event, on October 29, 2021, the same workshop was held, in the auditorium of the Parish Council of Ermesinde, with students from Ermesinde Highschool, between 14 and 18 years old.

The interest aroused in the students throughout the session was visible. They participated a lot, asked numerous questions and showed interest in participating in the different Erasmus+ mobility projects. Furthermore, our greatest achievement was to raise awareness of tools that were unknown to that young audience, namely the “Learning Corner” platform on the official EU website and the opportunities search platform on the European Solidarity Corps website. In addition, the school itself showed interest in collaborating with this type of Erasmus+ projects, and have initiated a probable contact with one of the partner organizations of the DOE project.