Thinking of Europe Fellowship 2023

From 3 to 5 March, the four fellows, arriving from four different countries, met for a kick-off event in Berlin. After a welcome and first getting to know each other, the afternoon included a brief introduction to Understanding Europe, and to the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft who is funding the programme.

The focus of the first day was on the expectations and understanding of the fellowship by the participants. Samira Brahimi, former fellow of last year’s programme, joined the fellows on Friday afternoon to share her experience and knowledge with the team.

On the second day, the fellows were joined by Ajša Hadžibegović, a youth work specialist at the intersection of policy, education and research. Ajsa has facilitated learning, innovation and collaboration processes with youth and other actors. Throughout the day, the fellows learned more about the structure and implementation of the toolbox and discussed how they will adapt their work to this new tool. The day continued with the understanding of the needs analysis conducted in the network and was followed by the introduction of the pedagogical approaches of UE that will be used when developing their course topics.

The focus of the last day was then on the overall planning of the next steps. In the coming weeks and months, the fellows will work intensively on creating new courses based on their individual topics and re-working the existing workshops to fit them in the toolbox structure. Network feedback and tests in schools will take place in order to ensure a user-friendly experience and implementation both in the schools and the Understanding Europe network. The next meeting will take place in July 2023.

More information on the fellowship programme can be found here.