The youth project My Resistance, My Democracy (2023-2024) focuses on the European resistance against fascism and National Socialism, especially among the youth, and aims to make these experiences accessible to young people. Based on this, the participants will receive suggestions that will help them develop and formulate their own political ideas. The project started with interactive workshops between March and May 2023.

In the course of the project, Zentrum polis developed a digital toolkit for pedagogical work on the topics of resistance and democracy: a multilingual online pedagogical handbook with introductory texts for multipliers, teaching examples, and a collection of external media content, resources, and institutions.

You can find the My Resistance Digital Toolkit here.

In June 2023, young people exchanged ideas and developed initial political demands at a national conference in Vienna, where they also had the opportunity to network with young people from Poland.

In autumn 2023, young people from all four partner countries (Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Austria) met in Bologna for the 1st Youth Conference. Specific forms of (local) resistance were debated and the first steps for a common list of political demands were set.

The collected demands were worked on further at the 2nd Youth Conference in Krakow in March 2024. The conference programme also included a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial. During the advocacy seminar that immediately followed, the importance of democracy was emphasised and initial preparations were made for Brussels.

The young people finally presented the finished manifesto to political decision-makers during a study visit to the European Parliament in Brussels in June 2024.

More information about the project can be found here.