We are professional educators, locally renown civil promoters and facilitators of public discourse. In our work we often see a lack of empathy from our students, limiting their perceptions. In preparing a 'CC' publication, containing a step-by-step manual for every interested, Slovenian educator, we think to serve Civic Europe best.
Our optimization, done in a secondary school in a group of learning disabled and in a youth group with rural backgrounds, will make sure of Slovenian peculiarities.

Slovenj Gradec and Dravograd, Koroška, north-east Slovenija.

Slovenj Gradec, a former epicenter of engaged art practices and example to glance on, can today basically be considered culturally isolated and democratically un-evolved, even for Slovenian standards.
Folks feel forgotten, distrust the pol. system and function widely still in a repressive spirit. A big problem is the lack of civic education.
During years of our activities, a landscape of civil organizations could develop, that work now on a common areal. A flee-market was initiated and the pilot “Carinthian democratic station (CDS)” was launched, that systematically supports the discourse between civil society and local authority.
This idea is already a consequence of the CDS and would, next to offering primary education materials, ensure the regularization of civil engagement.

We do it: 1. for secondary school students, 2. for young people with learning disabilities and 3. for youngsters from a rural backgrounds, as they are part of our extended project-team, 4. regularize a vivid discourse between public and civic institutions
We do it for all interested teachers that will find interest in this kind of teaching and for all parents, that want to offer useful movies. As Slovenia is a small country and such specific literature is not found in our language, this freely available guideline should find its users easily.
The realization of this guide however, will support the continuation of the civic space CDS, that nurtures the collective of engaged individuals with a task to further integrate systematically a civil forum for public discourse in Sl.Gradec

Coordination by one person/mentor, who involves with interested volunteer youth in a non-formal learning process during the entire process.
duties: regular meetings, coordination of activities, delegation of responsibilities and work tasks within an open structured working-team, controlling.

Two kind of groups, each engaged in diff. activities.

Authoring-Group, composed by experts of partners and external experts that will prepare the entire course materials for one year (10 films with overviews and working-sheets).
M: Process of joint document processing

3 Test-Groups (secondary school pupils, youth center users and youth with special needs), will, carefully mentored, work through the course, returning gathered information to the authoring group.
M: Open debates, written assignments, presentations, questionnaires.

Authoring-Group, final assessments are done, optimization and finally authoring of the publication (creative common license)
M: Individual assessments, then joint workshops & discussions, final sketch

The finished publication will be made available in all relevant networks, free to be downloaded by individuals, non-governmental and governmental institutions alike.
M: Networking (national/regional), individual contacting, presentations, video-promotion through social media, general PR

Result 1:
A, under creative commons license published handbook “Empathy Through Film”, which offers an entire course for 15 to 18 year old students, and older.

Result 2:
This publication will facilitate and stimulate pedagogical and andragocial work with movies. In that perspective it contributes a base to expert literature for a didactical method, teaching through movies, merely in Slovenia still unexplored.

Result 3:
An additional year of functionality and additional integration of the CDS spaces, that would in case of approval of financing, coordinate the entire process and therefore dispose of infrastructures to use from civil society members for other locally important discourses.

As the project is carried out within and by users of the CDS, an open, civic space, meant to organize civil discourse, to offer support and to live civic cohesion, this one-year lasting activity means also another year of ensured infrastructures to address other civil matters, that may rise from other citizens or NGO's of our region alike.

The process, leading to a first open source publication bothering about education to empathy, that will be undergone by all involved in the project will continue to integrate structures of cooperation that established during the last years and advance the credibility of the civil and non-governmental sector in our region.

The team is composed by experts from the field of pedagogy and andragogy as well as local cultural workers. Our common experiences, with focus on non-formal learning processes in occasion of civil-society endeavors (e.g. volunteering, public-transport, migrant-crises 2015) made us identify this challenge as an important and within our local boarders, through cooperation, executable one.
On the one hand this project means locally a continuation of the integration of the civil society sector in public affairs and the regularization of cooperation between non-governmental and governmental sector. For our citizens, on the other hand, this is an additional example of the positive effects of civil-society organizations, which we believe enlarges generally the trust in active citizenship.

Personnel costs (coordination, administration, etc) € 20.400,-
Office expenses € 1.200,-
Public relations, travel, authoring € 9.000,-
Print costs € 900,-
License fees € 3.000,-
Volunteering € 2.500,-

- Ideas and methods on joint document processing,
- Movie titles and thoughts about their specific teaching
- General thoughts on how to didactically succeed in teaching realities like hunger, sacrifice,
common sense, belonging, curiosity, etc.