Main aim of the project is to equip youth workers, youth leaders and professionals active in the youth field with set of critical thinking skills and improve their media literacy knowledge which will be applied in their work with young people with the help of non-formal education tools and methodology.
Main objectives:
– Introduction of the term critical thinking, retrospection, fundamentals, basic principles
– Improving media literacy – recognizing misleading, false or manipulative information in mass media, social media and other media channels. Improving media content analysis skills. Developing recognition skills of altered images with Photoshop or other software with the help of graphic design professional session. Future of fake news – artificial intelligence video manipulation methods.
– Examining the role of media manipulation for the instillation of prejudice and stereotypes towards national groups, ethnicities, vulnerable groups of people and other target groups.
– Sharing good practices from participating countries and personal examples on fighting the false news phenomena.
– Exploring in depth European Union and world practices and strategies to fight propaganda and false news. Presentation of the best websites on the topic.
– Creating campaigns aimed at young people, to tackle the spread of misinformation on local level in the partners countries.
– Developing new non-formal tools and methods to work with young people for the development of their critical thinking and media literacy.
– Developing project management skills in the field of Erasmus + programme. The participants will write their own Erasmus + projects during the mobility.
– Creating a new network of Non-Governmental Organizations which will be a base for future partnership in the field of media literacy and critical thinking and the Erasmus + programme.
The program of the course will be based on non-formal education and will be conducted using a highly interactive and participative approach. The activities will be managed by a team of experienced trainers and facilitators.

The following profile of participants have been identified:
– Youth leaders, trainers, mentors, youth workers actively involved in youth work within the partner organizations
– Under ideal conditions, participants should be able to influence decision-making process in the organization
– Be aged over 18
– Be able to use English language with working proficiency
– To commit to fully attend the course and take part in all the preparatory tasks that the project coordinators and team will ask them
– Be prepared to make follow up dissemination of the results of the course through active youth work in cooperation with their organizations
The participants must be citizens or residents of the sending country!!!

The training course will take place in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

Stara Zagora (Bulgarian: Стара Загора) is a city in Bulgaria, a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province. The city has a population of appr. 150 000 inhabitants and it is the fifth largest metropolitan area in Bulgaria. It is 230 km. away from the capital Sofia and 170 km. away from the Black Sea.
Weather:
The city is in an area of a transitional continental climate with a considerable subtropical influence. June is warm, but nights can become colder so keep in mind bringing transitional clothes as well.

How to get there:
From Sofia to Stara Zagora you have to take a Bus from Central Bus Station in Sofia. It is the fastest travel option, there are also trains between the two cities but most of them are much slower. The most comfortable mean of transportation from the airport to Central Bus Station is the newly built metro.
Central Bus Station is very close to Central Railway Station, were the metro station is located.
In order to get to the station you have to change the lines in Serdika station and take line 2 which leads to Central Railway Station!!!
Some additional information on Sofia Metro website:
http://www.metropolitan.bg/en/map/
Once you arrive in Central Bus Station there are frequent buses to Stara Zagora. Each day usually they are around 20 lines from Sofia to Stara Zagora. The last one departs at 18:30 local time.
The travelling from Sofia to Stara Zagora lasts approximately 3 hours.
When you arrive in Stara Zagora Bus Station you can either call us to pick you up to the hotel or take a taxi which will cost you around 2 euro in total. The taxi fare is not reimbursable.
We are planning to have dinner with all participants on the first day. We will also have “get to know each other” session this evening so consider this while you are making your travel plans!!!
We will be accommodated in “City Hotel” which is big hotel suitable for international meetings. It is located around 2 km. away from the city center.

In order to get your travel reimbursement, you need to keep all your tickets, boarding passes, invoices etc. We will reimburse your travel expenses once you send us all original documents!!!
The reimbursement will be done by bank transfer to your sending NGO account, which will redistribute it amongst the participants.
As by the rules of the programme, the participants are encouraged to use the most suitable and cheap means of transportation, which means no first class, non-reimbursable taxi expenses etc.
Please be aware that we can reimburse your travel expenses if they are done no more than 2 days before and after the activity. You can come earlier in Bulgaria or depart couple of days after the end of the activity, but any accommodation and other expenses during your stay besides the training course are non-reimbursable! During your stay the accommodation and the daily meals will be fully provided.
This is the maximum travel budget per participant for each country calculated by the Erasmus + travel calculator. Your travel costs are covered 100 % to the maximum expenses allowed.

Spain: 360€

INSURANCE!!!
It is very important according to the rules of Erasmus + to have valid travel and health insurance while attending this mobility. All participants are obliged to ensure their own insurance.

During the training course, we will organized couple of international evenings. In these events, each country participating will be presented by the participants coming from this country. This means that you should bring traditional meals, drinks, materials, music etc. from your country. We encourage creative and out of the box presentations.
Bring also materials about your organization-power point presentation, leaflets, brochures etc. Materials about the situation with entrepreneurship in your home country will be greatly appreciated as well.
Don’t forget to bring your positive attitude!!!

The emergency number in Bulgaria is 112.
Currency:
The official currency in Bulgaria is LEV(pl. LEVA). This is the central bank exchange which is approximate.
1 Euro = 1.9558 LEVA.
Some average prices:
1 beer 0. 5 l from a shop – 0.5 Euro
Taxi fare – 0.5 Euro per km.
One coffee in a coffee shop – 0.8 Euro
Decent lunch meal in a restaurant – 4 Euro
The best places to exchange money are bank branches. Please keep attention while you are exchanging money in private exchange bureaus, some of them apply disadvantageous exchange rates which deviates greatly from the official rates.
There are few exceptions with some countries swapping the meanings between nodding and shaking head. One of the exceptions is Bulgaria were a single nod of the head up (not down) indicates a «no». Be aware of this.