AKTYVISTAI: Insightful Project Presentation and Dialogue on Active Citizenship

In a meet­ing held at the Vila Kaunen­sis space, the audi­ence pri­mar­i­ly com­prised med­ical stu­dents and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from diverse youth orga­ni­za­tions. Par­tic­i­pants, pre­dom­i­nant­ly med­ical stu­dents, asso­ci­at­ed active cit­i­zen­ship with vot­ing rights, Europe, and social engage­ment. They expressed a sen­ti­ment that cit­i­zen­ship is insuf­fi­cient­ly empha­sized in aca­d­e­m­ic set­tings, lead­ing to a per­cep­tion of it pri­mar­i­ly as a polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and his­tor­i­cal indi­ca­tor rather than as a con­cept tied to the indi­vid­u­al’s impor­tance, cre­ativ­i­ty, and soci­etal influ­ence. While the pro­jec­t’s goals were deemed ben­e­fi­cial for edu­ca­tors and youth work­ers, stu­dents under­scored the chal­lenge of com­pre­hend­ing the sig­nif­i­cance, ben­e­fits, and neces­si­ty of cit­i­zen­ship with­in pub­lic insti­tu­tions due to a lack of prac­ti­cal com­po­nents. Youth work­ers empha­sized the piv­otal role of orga­ni­za­tions in bring­ing togeth­er spe­cial­ists, expe­ri­ences, and expec­ta­tions to facil­i­tate infor­mal activ­i­ties that enhance under­stand­ing of civic activism. Addi­tion­al­ly, a ZOOM con­ver­sa­tion refined ideas for pro­mot­ing active cit­i­zen­ship, cat­e­go­riz­ing per­spec­tives into indi­vid­ual, soci­etal, and cre­ative aspects. Par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the effec­tive­ness of inter­ac­tive tools, cre­ative infor­mal activ­i­ties, and prac­ti­cal team engage­ments in fos­ter­ing increased involve­ment in var­i­ous civic ini­tia­tives.